Did John Galliano ditch rehab to work on Kate Moss’ wedding gown? Maybe.
Hey, remember yesterday when John Galliano stood trial for public insult? If you rack your brain, you might remember that he moaned on and on about his triple addiction (to Valium, alcohol, and sleeping pills) and assured the court that he’d been undergoing treatment at rehab. Since the disgraced designer is in a little bit of a pickle right now, with the law and with the public, I have a hard time imagining that he would make matters worse with perjury. Which is why the latest rumors swirling around the fashionable classes deserve even more skepticism then usual. Ever since February, there’s been a good deal of talk speculating that Galliano was handpicked to design Kate Moss‘ wedding gown. When the designer’s public scandal broke out, the Daily Mail reported that the supermodel had reached out to Galliano’s boyfriend, Alexis Roche, to supervise the creation of her dress while Galliano flailed around in a deep sea of disgrace. The latest gossip in the Moss/Galliano wedding dress is pretty juicy: for the past few months, Galliano’s been holed up in a New York designer’s atelier, working like mad on his supermodel BFF’s big white dress, and not, as he claimed, rehabbing all of his substance abuse problems away at treatment facilities in Arizona and Switzerland. Like I said, this rumor needs to be regarded with more skepticism than most of us can muster but I’m so hoping it’s true. First of all, if Galliano’s been working on a wedding gown, the legal consequences and public fury will be awesome. But second of all, and more importantly, I can only imagine what kind of wedding gown would emerge from the hands of a humiliated, angry John Galliano, a designer already celebrated for his twisted grotesque, now charged with the task of creating a glorious, earth-shattering dress for his no-stranger-to-scandal bosom buddy and one of the world’s most famous models to wear on one of the biggest, most festive days of her life. If Galliano’s truly spent the past two months doing nothing but gown-designing, the final dress will be a sight to behold. [Fashionologie]
Alaia goes where few men dare to tread, blasts both Wintour and Lagerfeld
In an interview with Virgine Mag, Azzedine Alaia had some particularly harsh words for two powerful fashion figures, Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour. Alaia might not have their level of rank, but he’s beloved in his own right, and so much of a free agent that recent accounts claim that he turned down John Galliano’s former post as head designer of Dior. Alaia came down hard on Vogue editrix Wintour, claiming that she won’t be remembered in history and criticizing her taste, holiest of holies:
“I said it before. She runs the business [of Vogue] very well, but not the fashion part. When I see how she is dressed, I don’t believe in her tastes one second. I can say it loudly! She hasn’t photographed my work in years even if I am a best seller in the US and I have 140 square meters at Barneys. American women love me; I don’t need her support at all. Anna Wintour doesn’t deal with pictures; she is just doing PR and business, and she scares everybody. But when she sees me, she is the scared one. [Laughs.] Other people think like me, but don’t say it because they are afraid that Vogue won’t photograph them. Anyway, who will remember Anna Wintour in the history of fashion? No one.”
BAM! Everyone likes a good bitch session about Anna Wintour – it’s fashion’s favorite party game. But Alaia’s next target is someone I’m more inclined to love:
“Happily, women love me and buy my clothes, unlike Karl who’s never been loved like me! [Laughs.] . . . I don’t like his fashion, his spirit, his attitude. It’s too much caricature. Karl Lagerfeld never touched a pair of scissors in his life. That doesn’t mean that he’s not great, but he’s part of another system. He has capacity. One day he does photography, the next he does advertisements for Coca-Cola. I would rather die than see my face in a car advertisement. We don’t do the same work. And I think that he is not doing a favor to young [designers] who might think it works that way. They’re going to fall before they retire.”
Much as I love Lagerfeld and his willingness to take on advertising and mass market projects and make them his own, I’ve been wondering when people were finally going to be like, WTF why is the Chanel head designer shooting commercials for Magnum Ice Cream? There’s a special place in my heart for all things trash, so Karl Lagerfeld could guest-host an episode of The Bachelor and I’d eat it right up, but I’d think the fashion world had enough snobs that one of them would have come forward sooner to blast the Kaiser for being so declasse. You know why they haven’t? Because they’re all cowards. Alaia’s right: the ways that he and Lagerfeld approach their work as designers are mutually exclusive, but they do have one thing in common which sets them apart from the fashion mob — they aren’t cowards. [VirgineMag]
Tommy Ton and Jason Wu make sweet, sweet street style
Jason Wu‘s new e-commerce has bags a plenty, and to celebrate the launch of the site and the great selection of purses, Wu commissioned street style photographer Tommy Ton of Jack & Jil to photograph the collection in downtown Manhattan. This is all good news for anyone that enjoys Jason Wu, street style, or purses — so basically, it’s good news for you, if you’re itching for a little eye candy on this gloomy afternoon. [BagSnob]
