Anti-Semitic Rehab & john Galliano

Hadley Freeman takes on the fashionistas and John Galliano’s excusers:

” If Field, Kidman and the rest of the fashion corps took their heads out of their butts for a few minutes and read a book, they would doubtless cite what is known as The TS Eliot Defence, which is that Eliot’s distasteful views of Jews haven’t stopped people reading his work. The answer to this is, quite obviously: 1. While antisemitism is always abhorrent, Eliot did live in a different era and some adjustments of expectations must be made, and, in any case: 2. Eliot, to my knowledge, never said all Jews should have been gassed.

If reading feels like too much of a trial, perhaps they could cite The Coco Chanel Defence, which argues that Chanel herself was not averse to having some sexy time with top-level Nazis during the war but people are not condemned for wearing the Chanel label today. Again, two simple replies: 1. Chanel was punished for her treacherous behaviour and her business suffered (because Parisians in the 1940s understood that wearing clothes by someone who expresses love for a Nazi is not such a good look), and: 2. The clothes are no longer designed by Coco Chanel as she is, in fact, dead. Yes, the designer for the label these days, Karl Lagerfeld, is German but, come on, we’ve all moved on. Well, all of us except Galliano.

While we all wait with bated breath to see how rehab cures Galliano’s antisemitism problem (and how, pray tell, does antisemitic rehab work? Is he force-fed matzo-ball soup? Made to watch Annie Hall on loop? Taught the ways of hypochondria? Gosh, sounds kinda like my childhood), let us muse on how the answer to Lucinda’s question is in fashion patois. The fancy term in fashion land for wearing a designer’s clothes is “showing support”, eg: “Tom Ford’s such a dear friend so I always try to show support for him.” Ergo, perhaps now is not the time to “show support” for Galliano. “