EXCLUSIVE: John Galliano Is Leaving Maison Margiela — and It’s All Good

Maison Margiela and John Galliano are winding up a 10-year collaboration that delivered fashion thrills, cultural moments and business progression galore.

Disclosing the development exclusively to WWD, Italian fashion titan Renzo Rosso and Galliano characterized their partnership as enriching, life changing and groundbreaking.

It culminated with the spring 2024 Maison Margiela Artisanal show last January that won universal acclaim, put full-throttle creativity back on the industry agenda and propelled Galliano to the very top of the fashion heap.

Employees at Maison Margiela were informed of the change Wednesday just ahead of the company Christmas party, which is sure to be bittersweet.

Galliano did not say what he might do next, and Maison Margiela has yet to disclose its succession plan.

The parting of ways caps off a year of momentous and often unexpected designer comings and goings at the likes of Chanel, Celine, Dries Van Noten, Fendi, Alberta Ferretti, Missoni, Helmut Lang and others.

But Rosso and Galliano took pains to characterize their parting as beyond amicable, expressing effusive thanks to each other in exclusive interviews conducted via email.

“As we are parting ways with this beautiful house, my heart overflows with joyous gratitude, and my soul smiles so I want to take this time to express it. I continue to atone, and I will never stop dreaming,” Galliano told WWD.

He described his relationship with Rosso with one word: family.

“In inviting me to assume the position of artistic director in the house that Martin built, he gave me the greatest, most precious gift: the opportunity to once again find my creative voice when I had become voiceless,” said Galliano, alluding to his ouster from Christian Dior and his namesake fashion house in 2011 following racist and antisemitic outbursts in a Paris bar.

The incident precipitated one of the most spectacular flameouts in recent fashion history, with Galliano describing work-related stress and multiple addictions in court proceedings against him.

“My wings mended, and I better understood the all-consuming act of creativity. A second chance. With childlike eyes and forgotten innocence, we make amends, believing in ourselves — for God is in all of us — not when we cancel each other out.

“Renzo stood up there and did it, whether it was right or wrong he did give one a second chance, took the risk, or whatever it was perceived to be, and I think people sat up to it,” Galliano continued. “It told the fashion industry that it is at its best when we collectively support each other, not judge; when we accept, forgive and help one another see the error of our ways. Being brave enough to unlearn, to reeducate ourselves from the past — for it is societally learnt — to share, empathize and practice compassion.”

Rosso spoke in similarly lyrical terms.

“I am proud to have created and built a relationship with John that goes beyond work and is based on respect, appreciation and a profound friendship,” he told WWD. “Together we have done something incredible that will be forever engraved in the history of fashion.

“In a world where collections seem to look more and more like each other, products with no real and distinctive DNA, John gave center stage to the greatness, the culture and the values of product,” Rosso said. “He made Margiela a unique house that embodies the desire for creativity and the dream of fashion, bringing it to a worldwide success based on these rare product values. He inspired young people all over the world. Just look at what he generated online after his last Artisanal show. So many established designers reached out to him after the show to say that he had reminded them of the reason why they do what they do. This is priceless in this day and age.”

Rosso did not rule out an encore.

“I wish my dear friend John the best of everything, and I know that there will be other projects for us to collaborate on in the future,” he remarked in a press release which touted “10 inspiring, emotional, successful years of collaboration.”

Business Momentum

Maison Margiela is part of Rosso’s OTB Group, which also controls the Diesel, Jil Sander, Marni and Viktor & Rolf brands, production arms Staff International and Brave Kid, and holds a stake in the Amiri brand.

Jil Sander, Maison Margiela and Marni make up OTB’s luxury segment, which reported 17.6 percent growth in 2023 at constant exchange rates.

While the company does not break down revenues by brand, market sources estimate revenues at Maison Margiela are approaching $500 million, with the majority of sales stemming from directly owned retail and online sales.

At the time of Galliano’s appointment, market sources estimated the company generated about 100 million euros annually. It operated about 50 directly owned stores in 2014.

Today, the company boasts about 120 stores globally, 50 of them having opened in the last four years, and 43 of those in Asian countries, led by Japan, China and South Korea.

Market sources also described vibrant business for licensed Maison Margiela products, with fragrance and eyewear generating more than $200 million in annual revenues. Its drops with eyewear partner Gentle Monster regularly generated hours-long queues and rapid sellouts.

To be sure, Galliano’s tenure at Margiela yielded many unforgettable and spine-tingling fashion moments, such as dressing Rihanna for the 2018 Met Gala in a pope-inspired pearl and jewel-embellished dress with a matching mitre, and introducing the world to the exaggerated, scissoring runway strut of German model Leon Dame, which went viral in 2020.

The designer’s initial shows for Maison Margiela were staged in no-frills white-box venues, leaving the stage to his expert tailoring and dressmaking. In tune with the zeitgeist, he preferred coed displays and put all manner of clothes on his male and female muses.

Seminal Moments

Asked by WWD to share his proudest achievements during his decade at the Paris-based house, Galliano replied: “To share and communicate with the younger team, empathy, compassion, to be able to do all this but sober, and to thrive to create the coolest, most cutting-edge couture house in the world. I celebrate the genderless collections we now produce, reinforced by how they are bought and supported.

“My coed collections, whether Artisanal or ready-to-wear, represent diversity and individuality. Through the films we’ve produced and the resulting platforms created, I am able to stay in touch with my digital nomads, connecting and sharing experiences without fear.”

In 2019, the brand introduced a new fragrance, Mutiny, developed with licensing partner L’Oréal and underscoring Galliano’s rebellious, boundary-breaking approach to fashion.

Galliano said a film that backed the scent “culminated my work and verbalized our sociopolitical messaging — our beliefs that trans rights, queer rights, gender equality in the workplace, anti-racism and mental health advocacy had to be at the center. It was a manifesto for this brave new generation — a testament to the courage to stand up proudly and fearlessly for what you believe in.”

The designer also touted “the importance of slow and ethical fashion and the influence it has on all our collections, the pyramidical way of working. We have relished in this with my atelier, my ‘A’ team — devout in belief and dedicated to style and technique. Together, we are driven by beauty — the quest for balance, construction and the lightness of a feather. I want to celebrate the joy I found in the various ways we communicated creatively with different artistic cultures, theater, cinema, embracing all these cultures to celebrate fashion.”

Galliano mentioned his collaboration with Nick Knight on a pandemic-era fashion film and “the incredible redefining of the shopping experience through our Maison Margiela e-commerce, the simple idea of seeing the clothes in motion. What better way to understand fashion.”

Asked if he had accomplished all he wished in his decade at the house, the designer mused: “I suppose you could ask me this question again in 10 years, and the answer would still be no. But as a compass, I hope we have set the right direction for this beautiful maison.”

In an industry rarity, Rosso left Galliano free of any commercial obligation to create Margiela’s Artisanal collections, returning couture to its function as a research and development department that can inspire other product lines, rather than service an elite clientele.

The designer leaned into his formidable cutting skills and theatrical bent, designing with high-tech fabrications that interact with smartphones, with foam-like materials, and experimenting in garment reconfiguration.

Galliano kept an irregular schedule for fashion shows, pivoting to feature films during the pandemic, including one by “La Vie en Rose” director Olivier Dahan.

For his fall 2022 Artisanal collection, Galliano staged an ambitious, theatrical performance recorded in front of a live audience. It had models lip-synching to a prerecorded soundtrack as the livestreamed movie unfolded in real time.

“I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful to embrace fashion, theater, digital — all the cultures?” he enthused at the time, though some guests were rattled by the gun play in his raunchy road movie.

But the pièce de résistance was the Artisanal show earlier this year, which turned out to be Galliano’s swan song at Maison Margiela, celebrated throughout the year with exhibitions, a documentary and a special Paolo Roversi photo shoot for Luncheon magazine.

In its review, WWD said that spine-tingling show would “be remembered in history books, collected by museums, pored over by design students — and possibly extinguish the quiet luxury juggernaut with the tsunami of powerful emotions and fashion thrills it unleashed.…Every outfit was a marvel of imagination and artisanal craft.”

Indeed, Galliano had invented a litany of new couture techniques for that seminal show. These included new ways to encrust lace, create sequins with fabric, drape tulle, shrink and glue tweed, ridge and groove fabrics to resemble cardboard, and to imbue garments with subliminal gestures via “emotional cutting.”

Galliano’s tenure coincided with some management turmoil. Its current chief executive officer Gaetano Sciuto arrived in July 2023, at which time Renzo Rosso ceded the chairman’s title at Maison Margiela after 21 years to his son Stefano Rosso, marking an important step in the latter’s career. Sciuto’s predecessors as CEO included Gianfranco Gianangeli, Riccardo Bellini and Giovanni Pungetti.

Yet OTB made important investments in the house, moving its headquarters from dingy, white-walled digs in the trendy 11th arrondissement of Paris to tony Place des États-Unis in a grand town house said to have cost 130 million euros.

How It All Started

OTB, which stands for Only the Brave, became the main shareholder of Maison Margiela in 2002 and took full control in 2006.

Rosso is known to be very attached to the Paris-based fashion house, navigating it through the 2009 retirement of Belgian founder Martin Margiela and recruiting Galliano as artistic director in 2014, rescuing him from fashion limbo.

The executive told WWD that he first met Galliano as OTB produced and distributed the John Galliano Kids line.

“To anyone as passionate about creativity as I am, John is an icon. I was instinctively attracted to his way of interpreting and imagining things,” Rosso related. “I asked to meet him immediately after he exited Dior without knowing why, only telling myself, ‘I dream to work with this god of fashion.’ I literally courted him for two years, meeting and talking about doing something together.

“Then one day, actually one night, in all secrecy, I invited him to visit the Maison Margiela archives in Paris, and that’s where the spark started. The day after, John called me and told me that what he would have loved to do was Margiela, a house that inspired him his whole life.”

Rosso confessed that “it wasn’t easy for me in the beginning to understand his culture of couture, that couture that Martin loved so much. But the more I worked with John on the couture, the more it fascinated me, making me discover where it all started, the story of every single piece, imagined on the muse that inspired it, in the moment of creation and like every single piece had its own story to tell. To interpret this, we began to approach collections differently than the usual prêt-a-porter way, starting from the toiles and then adding fabrics, accessories.…This has revolutionized the way of working of the maison, and thanks to this, John made it the cutting-edge couture house it is today.

“I am simply proud and happy to have contributed to bringing John back to his roots, to his values, to his talent. And proud and happy that he leaves a house which today is probably one of the coolest in the whole world,” Rosso added.

Prized for his ultra-feminine, historically inspired designs, and a particular penchant for bias-cut gowns, Galliano was hardly an obvious choice for a house known for cleft-toed boots, deconstructed fashions and all-white stores.

But in the interview, Galliano noted that “there was an aesthetic through the ’80s that we did share, with my earlier work.”

“Deconstruction, turning things inside out, me, Judy Blame, we were all experimenting with it as young designers in London. It’s a process you go through, you deconstruct to better understand how to construct clothes,” the designer explained.

As part of Rosso’s courting process, he arranged for Galliano to have a cup of tea with Martin Margiela, an opportunity he described as precious.

“I also discovered his love of historical costumes, his love of 17th-century French literature. He was passionate about all this like I was,” Galliano said. “Martin’s joy and his long-hidden wish that a couturier would assume this role, came along with his kind advice: ‘Take what you will from the DNA of the house, protect yourself and make it your own, you know how to.’ That tipped the balance.”

At Margiela, he embraced the founder’s Greta Garbo legacy, never coming out for a bow after shows, and granting few interviews, preferring podcasts to explain his collections and working methods.

“As for the anonymity, I never hid behind this, but to put the spotlight back on the clothes, I was quite happy with that,” Galliano clarified. “So you can say I took comfort in that, yes, but hiding, no.”

Galliano’s Beginnings

A club kid from South London via Gibraltar, Galliano hit the international fashion radar immediately after graduating from Central Saint Martins in 1984. With his theatrical flair and inspirations of epic proportions, Galliano immediately became famous for his ultra-feminine gowns, innovative tailoring and a cheeky, streetwise edge.

Commercial success didn’t come as easily. Based in London early in his career, Galliano struggled throughout the 1980s and early ‘90s, with a succession of backers. He had to close his business three times after they withdrew their financing because of slow sales growth.

Still, his technical virtuosity and knack for making fashion headlines attracted the attention of luxury titan Bernard Arnault, who tapped him in 1995 to succeed Hubert de Givenchy upon his retirement, moving the designer to Dior a year later. “Mr. Arnault is a true visionary to put someone like myself in my position,” Galliano told WWD in an interview in 2007. “Many houses have copied that since.”

At Dior, he succeeded a string of legendary design talents — Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan and Gianfranco Ferré — and spent 15 years at the French house, further catapulting its global fame and elevating its image.

Galliano is 64, and has made amends with executives at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, including Sidney Toledano, who was CEO at Dior when the designer was ousted, but is not seen returning immediately to any of its brands. The French group owns the John Galliano trademark and business, which is currently on hiaitus.

In the interview, the designer spoke frankly about his demons, and his recovery and atonement.

“I have practiced the very concept of finding a balance in my life: The balance between creative life and life itself. I had no notion of step-by-step or tomorrow is another day, it was all fashion. The house could burn down, it didn’t matter as long as that dress on Linda [Evangelista] was all right,” Galliano said. “Forgiving myself was, for a while, the hardest act. I felt guilty that my behavior perpetuated the stereotype that creativity had to be fueled by drink and drugs. That old rock ‘n’ roll attitude — so wrong.

“I hope we have proven that creativity is never out of fashion. It is not fueled by those destructive forces, but by a creative community that cares and considers design,” he continued. “I found at Maison Margiela a life-saving creative moment. This precious gift I speak of, supported by cherished and loved ones, allows me to see the world afresh through a different lens. It enables me to share this experience with the young adults joining us, reinforcing a belief in oneself. You can be whoever you want to be — in joy. You do matter, and we do care.

“With my teams, my fashion family, we have built a safe place. Their support has been tender and courageous. They have walked with me along this narrow pathway to the here and now,” Galliano said. “I’ll readily admit I’m demanding and difficult to run with when challenged, but look at what we have built.”