John Galliano
REVIEW
COMPLETE COLLECTION
PARIS, March 2, 2000
By
"Welcome to our Playground." This time at Chez Galliano, those telling models' cue-cards were scripted in bright crayola colors and stuck with children's sweeties.Yes, Galliano decided it was time for some serious dress-up, but after his flashy Dior show earlier in the week, he wasn't thinking of entrance-making Oscar gowns. Instead, he chose to further infantalize his models (many of whom have yet to break into their twenties), by casting them as little girls let loose with their mom's clothes—and maybe their pop's and sports-mad brother's too.
With all the pressure on him to continually invent the fashion wheel, and please the big guns at LVMH, Galliano apparently decided to regress to a cozier time. To a soundtrack that included the themes from '60s British kids' TV shows, Galliano's girls (and one or two experimental little boys too), clomped down the runway in mom's far-too-big shoes (perversely made with inner pockets to ensure that they actually did fit), their faces and sometimes clothes smeared with primary paint colors. A brother's huge soccer shirt (team Galliano); dad's giant cardigan; mom's mad '70s wallpaper print frock; her prom dress (stepped into the wrong way, twisting the bodice all to the front), were all assembled with a child's delightfully untrained eye.
Some tattered but classic Galliano treasures could be salvaged from the dress-up box, but this was less a fashion show than an indulgent but enchanted Alice-in-Wonderland adventure into the comfort zone of barely remembered childhood.
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