Paris Fashion Week is minus Dior's Galliano after alleged anti-Jewish ou

MARSEILLES // The much-vaunted Paris Fashion Week has begun with the notable absence of the British fashion guru John Galliano, dismissed as Dior's chief designer after being accused of a series of drunken antisemitic outbursts.

Inconveniently for the 50-year couturier, his angry denial of the first incident was quickly followed by allegations of similar conduct in two separate cases.

A video clip, filmed on a mobile phone and made available to the British tabloid newspaper The Sun, showed him telling two women in a Paris bar, La Perle: "People like you would be dead. Your forefathers would all be f******. gassed."

Although the designer's speech is heavily slurred, he can also he heard telling them: "I love Hitler."

Given that Mr Galliano's homosexuality - officially condemned by the Nazis - is no secret, this was a surprising remark unless he shares the views of some historians that the Fuhrer was either gay or bi-sexual.

Dior had already suspended Mr Galliano after a complaint by another woman, Géraldine Bloch, led last week to a police investigation and an unwelcome burst of negative publicity.

It was in the same Parisian bar, in the smart Marais district, that Ms Bloch, 35, a curator at the Paris Institute of the Arab World, says Mr Galliano grabbed her hair and told her: "Dirty Jew, you should be dead."

Mr Galliano responded to her accusations by launching a counter-suit for defamation. He insisted that he made no anti-semitic insults in French or English and said he had no idea whether Ms Bloch was Jewish. It has subsequently been reported that she is not.

At the weekend, another woman came forward to say she had insulted her in similar terms. This was followed by the appearance of the video clip.

The evidence of past misconduct undermined Mr Galliano's indignant protestations of innocence, leaving the outcome inevitable.

Dior announced that it was taking steps to dismiss him. The fashion house's chief executive, Sidney Toledano, who had described the designer's alleged conduct as "odious", said in a statement: "I condemn most firmly the statements made by John Galliano which are a total contradiction with the essential values that have always been defended by the House of Christian Dior."

The Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman, who is contracted to promote Dior's Cherié perfume and is Jewish, also made her feelings clear.

"I am deeply shocked and disgusted by the video," she said. "In light of this video, and as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr Galliano in any way.

"I hope at the very least, these terrible comments remind us to reflect and act upon combating these still-existing prejudices that are the opposite of all that is beautiful."

If Mr Galliano's rants will be seen by some as reflecting his weakness for heavy drinking more than any deep philosophical thinking, his mistake was nevertheless to enter zero-tolerance territory in the parts of Europe with the most painful memories of the Second World War.

Denial of the Holocaust is a criminal offence and acts of violence or insulting behaviour are considered in a more serious light if accompanied by anti-semitic or racist remarks or motivation.

For decades after the war, the French tried their best to ignore an inglorious period when humiliation at the hands of the Germans was aggravated by collusion in deportation of Jews. Of 75,000 Jews dispatched from France towards the concentration camps, only about 2,000 returned alive.

Echoes of that era persist today. At a ceremony last year in the Alpine village of Saint-Martin-Vésubie, honouring the memory of gendarmes who concealed Jewish families from the Nazis, more than one speaker noted that while some French people were prepared to risk their lives with such acts of courage, others - from police to ordinary people struggling to get through the war - were only too willing to collaborate.

Dior's swift decision to end its 15-year association with an acclaimed designer, who remains to be convicted, can be seen in the context of this aspect of French history.

Mr Galliano, born in Gibraltar but raised in London has been hailed as a creative master, repeatedly winning designer-of-the-year awards from the British Fashion Council and styling clothes worn by some of the world's most famous women.

His loss represents a serious setback for Dior, which clearly felt that failure to act promptly and sternly would have exposed it to serious criticism.

It will be of little consolation to Mr Galliano that amid widespread dismay at his actions, one fellow designer, the American Giorgio Armani, at least expressed understanding of the complex personality of a colleague in disgrace. "You can't expect exemplary behaviour from an eccentric man like him."

Paris Fashion Week officials presented a brave face. "This has nothing to do with fashion," Didier Grumbach, president of the Fédération Française de la Couture, told fashion writers. Dismissing suggestions that one unsavoury episode would tarnish the event, added: "By the end of the week, you will have forgotten about it — if we show you enough things."

Mr Galliano is expected to learn later this week whether he will face prosecution.

One acquaintance has been quoted as saying he has been struggling with the pressure of fame, but realises the gravity of the controversy: "He knows he's a dead man. It is horribly violent and tragic. I am very pessimistic about his future."

foreign.desk@thenational.ae