High & Low: John Galliano – rise and fall of the 'ignominiously sacked' fashion genius

Galliano and Anna Wintour at a 2021 fashion show

Galliano has long claimed his rant was a 'moment of madness'

(Image credit: David M. Benett / Dave Benett / Getty Images)

published 14 March 2024

"There's an argument to be made that we have heard everything we ever need to hear from John Galliano," said Wendy Ide in The Observer. He is the flamboyant British designer who was "ignominiously sacked" as creative director of Dior in 2011, after footage emerged of him "booze-sodden" in a Paris bar, "spewing an antisemitic tirade at strangers". That video earned Galliano a criminal conviction, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. However, his defenders say he wasn't "really antisemitic" – and that it was "the booze, the drugs and the nervous breakdown talking". He has since been engaged in a process of rehabilitation, both drying out from his addictions and seeking to educate himself with help from Holocaust charities, and has been forgiven by the fashion world.

Three years in the making, this new documentary from Kevin Macdonald ("Touching the Void", "The Last King of Scotland") traces Galliano's journey, said Stephen Doig in The Daily Telegraph. Using his own words, and those of A-list fans (including Kate Moss and Anna Wintour), it offers a "fascinating" account of the designer's early years and the success that won him a "superstar lifestyle", but also brought the almost-unbearable pressure of designing up to 32 collections a year. "High & Low" also asks: "should one of the greatest fashion geniuses of the 20th century" have been so swiftly absolved for what he claims was a moment of madness? It's a question the film itself – which is about Galliano's frailty and flaws, as much as his genius – declines to answer. It allows him to present his side, but also gives voice to those who were "deeply wounded by his actions".