BRITISH FASHION designer John Galliano told a Paris court yesterday he was recovering from an addiction to alcohol and did not remember making anti-Semitic remarks earlier this year.
The former Dior designer is on trial for allegedly making anti-Semitic slurs in front of customers in a Paris bar.
The charges against him, and the release of an undated amateur video which appeared to show him expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler, have already cost him his job at the French fashion house.
Mr Galliano is charged with “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity” and could face up to six months in prison and €22,500 in fines.
On the first day of the trial, Mr Galliano’s lawyer, Aurélien Hamelle, said his client wished to “apologise to the people he offended” and that his alcoholic and “pathological state” could be proved by medical evidence.
Mr Galliano wanted to be forgiven, he said, and to have the chance to “rebuild himself professionally and personally”, adding that he hoped “forgiveness will be given to a man who is ill”.
The designer has already apologised “unreservedly” for any offence he may have caused and has said he was “seeking help” for his addictions.
He told the court how alcohol and drugs helped him deal with a heavy, stressful workload at the two labels for which he designed, Dior and Galliano.
“After every high there was a crash,” he told the court’s three judges. “The drink would help me escape.”
Mr Galliano said the 2007 death of his partner at Dior, Steven Robinson, made the situation worse. “The workload increased enormously,” he said. “And right around this time I lost my beloved friend Steven Robinson. Steven protected me from everything, so I could focus on design.
“When Steven died, with his parents I buried him, we went to the crematorium, and I went back to do a fitting.”
The initial claims against Mr Galliano were made by a couple who say he made anti-Semitic comments to them in La Perle, a popular Paris bar, in February. Another woman then came forward with similar claims about another incident in the same bar last October. Both accusations were being addressed at yesterday’s trial.
Dior fired Mr Galliano after 14 years with the company, denouncing his comments.
After he joined Dior in 1996 he made an indelible mark on the house, and his theatrical shows were among the most-anticipated on the Paris fashion calendar.