The celebrated fashion designer, John Galliano, who worked at Dior for 15 years, has lost his case for unfair dismissal in a Paris Labour court.
He was suspended and then fired from Dior in 2011, following anti-Semitic insults he made to two Italian women in a restaurant in Paris. The insults were filmed by a male companion of the women.
Dior had cited a zero-tolerance policy on racism and anti-Semitism and one of their brand ambassadors, the actress Natalie Portman, was also outraged at the comments.
John Galliano brought the suit for unfair dismissal as he claimed that Dior and parent company LVMH knew about his addictions to drugs and alcohol and so had a duty of care to him that they neglected. He said: “The two companies were fully aware of my state. I took Valium so I could get through fittings.”
He also told the court: “They are not views that I hold or believe in. I apologise for the sadness this whole affair has caused.”
He went on to say: “I can’t let the 17 years I spent and enjoyed at Dior be blackened like this. During these years as creative director of this house, I did not realise that its success, multiplying its sales by four, came at a destructive and exorbitant cost: my physical and mental health. Always more work, always more obligations, always more pressure, a dangerous and pathological spiral, without control.”
John Galliano was claiming lost earnings of up to €13million but the court in Paris rejected his demands and ordered him to pay €1 in costs.
Since his dismissal, he has undergone treatment for his addictions and has now been hired as creative director of Belgian brand Maison Martin Margiel.