Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Designer John Galliano’s Outfit Wasn’t Mocking Ultra-Orthodox Jews: ADL

Designer John Galliano was just getting creative and was not mocking ultra-Orthodox Jews when he stepped out in a hat, pinstripe suit and curls, the Anti-Defamation League said.

Claims the bad-boy French coutier was dressing in mock Hasidic attire are a “ridiculous, absurd distortion,” ADL chief Abraham Foxman said in a statement.

“This is John Galliano being John Galliano. His dress is always eccentric and his hair is always worn long,” Foxman said. “This is, at the very least, ignorance … or, at worst, a deliberate, malicious distortion.”

The ADL has been working to reform Galliano after he spewed anti-Semitic hatred in 2011.

Foxman said he has spent hours learning about the Holocaust and Jewish history

“He is trying very hard to atone,” Foxman said.

A French court has agreed to hear designer John Galliano’s case against Christian Dior, which fired him for making anti-Semitic remarks.

The decision to hear the case came in response to Galliano’s filing of an $18.7 million lawsuit against Dior. Monday’s hearing revealed that Galliano earned $7.7 million annually in several positions at Dior as well as from his own designer label. He was employed by Dior for 15 years.

Dior fired Galliano, a British national, in March 2011 after he was filmed making anti-Semitic statements at a Paris bar. Galliano stated his love for Adolf Hitler and told people he believed were Jewish that their mothers should have been gassed. He blamed his outbursts on addictions to drugs and alcohol.

A French court ruled in September 2011 that Galliano in several incidents had made “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity.”

Read more: https://forward.com/articles/170603/john-galliano-wins-hearing-in-m-suit-on-firing/#ixzz2KsO6BDw4

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.