The Fashion BusinessThe theatricality of this and all his subsequent collections may also have
been informed by Galliano’s immersion in the London club scene of the early
to mid-1980s in which the relentless reinvention of the self through costume
and make-up was the currency which guaranteed entry to the clubs.
In 1990 Galliano moved to Paris where he existed in a hand-to-mouth
way; in 1993 he showed a small but very influential collection in the
eighteenth-century house of the Portuguese socialite São Schlumberger.
Capitalizing on the fact that the empty house was up for sale, he created an
atmosphere of romantic decrepitude by scattering it with dead leaves and
rose petals, unmade beds and upturned chairs, and filling the air with dry
ice. In July 1995 he was appointed principal designer at the couture house
of Givenchy for which he produced his first couture show in January 1996
and two subsequent ready-to-wear collections before being appointed
principal designer at Dior. In his couture show for Givenchy Galliano created
a Princess and the Pea scenario in which two models sat twenty feet in the
air preening themselves on top of a pile of mattresses. A year later, in January
1997, he produced his first couture show for Dior, audaciously staged in a
fakemaison de couture: in the Grand Hotel in Paris Galliano created a scaled-
up facsimile of the original Dior showroom, including the famous staircase
on which Cocteau and Dietrich had sat in the 1950s to watch Dior’s shows.^6
In this, as in the 1993 show sponsored by São Schlumberger, Galliano wove
instant mythologies, creating something evocative out of nothing.
With the substantial backing of a major couture house Galliano was able
to create his shows on a far bigger scale than previously. Increasingly he
began to use more theatrical techniques, for example replacing runway
lighting with theatre lighting and minutely choreographing each section of
the show three days before. Each model had only one outfit per show, thus
avoiding the hectic series of rapid costume changes which characterized other
fashion shows. The more conventional parade down a catwalk was replaced
by a walk through a series of connecting rooms dressed like film sets through
which the story was told, reminiscent of the 1993 show in São Schlumberger’s
house when, in Galliano’s words, ‘the girls worked the whole house from
the top floor down. It was like an old salon presentation.’^7 The audience,
far smaller than the usual fashion show audience, was seated in small groups
in these rooms, far closer to the clothes than usual. The models, each of
whom had been rehearsed like an actress by Galliano before the show, were
encouraged to feel their way into, and act, the part of their characters as
- Ibid., p. 38.
- Ibid., p. 169.