Galliano’s not the worst

John Galliano, the fashion designer who likes to dress up as a pirate, was convicted of anti-Semitism in a Parisian court last week, and fined.

Galliano was once chief designer at Dior, but he got drunk in a Paris bar and screamed anti-Semitic abuse at some fat people (I am guessing they were fat) who were so upset they recorded it on their mobiles. I do not mind saying that the anti-Semitic element does not bother me in this case, even though I am a Jew. I have sharp antennae for the real deal, and this is not it. When I watch Galliano shout ‘I love Hitler!’ on that YouTube video, I don’t see a man who hates Jews. I see a man who hates himself. I do not agree with Brendan O’Neill, who wrote on these pages last week that alcoholism is not a mental illness, and good for Amy Winehouse for not going to rehab and not being suckered by the therapy industry, even if not being suckered killed her. You cannot criminalise a man so committed to knitwear.

Galliano is sick, and rather stupid, like most fashion people, because he does not know that anyone who teamed Shirley Temple curls with a Douglas Fairbanks moustache went straight to Dachau with the Commies and the Liberals. I also see a man who loves Nazi uniforms so much he forgets the politics. I wondered briefly if he meant, ‘I love Hitler[’s clothes]!’ but his lawyer forbade this clarification for fear of making a bad situation worse. He wouldn’t be the first. At least one historian thinks Nazism was all about the clothes. Rommel’s reputation has almost survived, due to James Mason’s well-cut cinematic impersonation. The civilisation that lasted 12 years was big on the ribbons, short on the meat.