What Happens When a Designer Leaves the House That Bears Their Name and How It Soldiers On, part No. 273: While this story isn’t quite as old as the hills, it’s certainly as old as the runways. It’s the tale of how a house sustains itself creatively (and, yes, commercially) when the visionary that founded it leaves. (There is, most definitely, a difference between the two.) Which brings us to John Galliano, the label, which has been without its mercurial and madly inventive namesake designer at the helm for over a year now. The creative direction has been entrusted to Galliano’s former studio chief, Bill Gaytten, who was also doing double duty over at Christian Dior. With Raf Simons now ensconced there, that should, technically, free up Gaytten to conjure up some magic at Galliano now that it’s his sole arena to show what he can do.
In the meantime, there has been the likes of a resort collection to think about, which Gaytten and his team seem to see in much more prosaic terms, i.e., it’s designed to sell to the broadest sweep of women, and not just to those enamored of the wildest imaginings of the will-o’-the-wisp who led the way before. That doesn’t mean to say, though, that some of Galliano’s most alluring leitmotifs—bias evening, softly romantic dresses, and jackets wickedly good in their cut and construction—weren’t present, it’s just that they were rendered in the most direct and straightforward of ways. The best pieces were: the sinuous long dress and draped jacket in a satinized linen colored the delicate shell pink of 1930s lingerie; a geometric pattern faintly traced with stars used for an oversize chiffon tee and full silk skirt; a striped silk halter dress that had collisions of pleats falling in different angles; and an undulating yet crisp shirtdress in a highly abstract print that was derived from a Salvador Dalí painting. Its Surrealist irreverence caught something of Galliano’s madcap musings of old, though going forward, perhaps the house needs to look to its own past to invoke more of its delightful daring.
