Scottish director Kevin Macdonald couldn’t have timed the release of his documentary, High & Low: John Galliano (Mubi), any better. Arriving in UK cinemas on 8 March 2024 (see the trailer below), the film dissects the rise, fall and redemption of legendary Gibraltor-born British designer John Galliano, chiming neatly with a second wind exemplified by his lauded S/S 2024 Maison Margiela Artisanal show in January, for the house where he is now creative director. ‘At the beginning, John said, “I don't want it to have a dark ending,”’ Macdonald recounts of the documentary project. ‘He said, “There has to be some light at the end of it because my life has come back.”’
To this point, the Maison Margiela Artisanal show – presented in Paris as part of Haute Couture Week – saw Galliano reignite fashion’s hunger for unbridled drama on the runway, presenting an exquisite blend of lived-in, distressed scrimps and Belle Époque silhouettes, with foot-on-the-back cinched corsets and frou frou tulle. Here, not only were the designs – some taking up to a year to fabricate – virally consumed and much reposted, but so too were the show’s extras: like Pat McGrath’s porcelain-like make-up; the wind-up-doll walks care of movement director Pat Boguslawski; or the antique chairs and the half-finished wine glasses strewn across time-worn tables. Together, this sum of parts reminded fashion’s older guard of the halcyon 1990s and noughts, when Galliano was the word on every editor's lips.
