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Post by sadie1263 on Jun 22, 2011 21:32:08 GMT
Galliano , the British fashion designer, has taken curtain calls dressed as a Hasidic Jew, Napoleon and Marilyn Monroe, but never as the sad, sombre-suited defendant who shuffled into his own Paris trial.
The 50-year old former creative director of the Dior fashion house faces charges of racism and anti-Semitism that could see him handed down a six-month prison term and a £21,000 fine. He denies the charges.
Sporting his trademark pencil moustache, Mr Galliano walked slowly into a packed courtroom, wearing a black three-piece suit, black polka dot neck scarf, and black brogues.
The former catwalk king remained impassive as the presiding judge read out the charges, to stifled courtroom laughter, including accusations that he called one plaintiff "dirty Jewish face" and "dirty whore a thousand times".
The career of fashion's "enfant terrible" took off with a collection inspired by the French Revolution. So there was a certain irony that he stood to lose it all in the courthouse where Marie-Antoinette was condemned to death by guillotine - Paris's Palais de Justice.
In softly spoken tones, Mr Galliano said he was pushed to the edge by a "billion dollar business" and "moneymaking machine" that Dior and his own Galliano brand had become.
As he battled to meet the demands of his "two children," he increasingly turned to drink, the court heard. "I would crash after every creative high, and the alcohol would help me to escape." His solace came in a triple cocktail of "sleeping pills, alcohol and Valium", but, he insisted, no illegal drugs.
He was, he said deeply affected by the 2007 death of his "dear friend" and business partner, Steven Robinson. When he died, he said he "buried him" with his parents then "went straight back to do my fittings".
The same thing happened at his father's death, he added. "I really didn't take the time to mourn."
"My body was becoming used to the pills, so my intake increased to an amount that I actually can't remember how many I was taking," he added. Things got so bad that he "couldn't go to work unless I had taken some Valium."
"I have only just discovered since after rehab what a lethal mixture I was taking," he said, adding that at the time he was "in complete denial".
At one point the court proceedings were interrupted as the translator could not understand Galliano's English.
Mr Galliano was charged with casting "public insults based on the origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity" at three people. Geraldine Bloch, a museum curator, said that on February 24, he called her a "dirty Jewish face" and "dirty whore" as she sipped cocktails in La Perle, a bar next door to Mr Galliano's flat in Paris's central Marais district.
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