I forgot say that this artiche was from newyorktimes.com
Our king has left France...
Galliano Said to Be Headed for Rehab
By SUZY MENKES
Published: March 2, 2011
RECOMMEND
SIGN IN TO E-MAIL
REPRINTS
SHARE
PARIS — John Galliano, the talented and troubled designer who was fired by the fashion house Christian Dior for making anti-Semitic remarks in a drunken rant at a Paris bar, issued an apology for his actions, and left France to enter rehabilitation on Wednesday, according to friends who refused to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Enlarge This Image
Francois Guillot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
John Galliano at the spring 2011 Christian Dior show in Paris.
‘‘Anti-Semitism and racism have no part in our society. I unreservedly apologize for my behavior in causing any offense,’’ Mr. Galliano said in a statement issued through Harbottle and Lewis, a London law firm, according to the Reuters news service. The designer's statement said he was ‘‘subjected to verbal harassment and an unprovoked assault when an individual tried to hit me with a chair having taken violent exception to my look and my clothing" during the altercation in a Parisian bar last week. He also has started legal action for defamation, according to the statement.
He was persuaded to accept treatment for his alcohol problems by close colleagues and friends like the supermodels Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, the sources said. While the treatment center is not known, it is likely that his destination is The Meadows, a facility in Wickenberg, Arizona, where Elton John and Donatella Versace were treated in recent years.
For Christian Dior, the billion-dollar company that dismissed him on Tuesday for making the remarks, the problems are only multiplying. The Dior autumn 2011 women’s wear show will go ahead here on Friday, according to a person at Dior who asked not to be identified.
The future of the John Galliano brand, which is underwritten by Dior, relies mainly on licenses and barely breaks even financially, is complex. Executives will have to see whether those external partners still want to be associated with a designer whose name has been globally smirched.
But more dramatic for Dior, and for the entire future of haute couture, is the problem of finding a replacement for Mr. Galliano. From the British designer’s tsunami of ideas in the twice-a-year haute couture and ready-to-wear collections, design teams build ranges of inter-season collections and accessory lines. Without leadership, the fashion house can run only a short time on empty.
In the past, Dior’s parent company, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and its founder and chief executive, Bernard Arnault, have tended to switch both executives and designers from brand to brand. Mr. Galliano himself started his reign at LVMH at Givenchy in 1995, before switching to Dior the following year. So it is natural that the name of Riccardo Tisci, the current designer at Givenchy, Italian-born and British-trained, is considered high on the list of possible replacements at Dior.
Mr. Tisci, like Mr. Galliano an alumni of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, has climbed the steep learning curve toward the heights of haute couture at Givenchy. The theory goes that other LVMH brands, like Céline, Loewe and Louis Vuitton, might then follow with changes in a kind of fashion merry-go-round.
Other theories suggest that a rising fashion star might be plucked to take over at Dior or that an established success story — such as the invigoration of Lanvin by the designer Alber Elbaz — could be transferred to the LVMH stable. But with so many long-established houses searching for new talent, even with the might of Dior, a speedy choice will not be easy.