High & Low: Brilliant Doc Captures Designer John Galliano’s Stupendous Rise and Fall
By Kim Hughes
Rating: A
It’s impossible to overstate the truth in advertising behind the title High & Low, Scottish director Kevin Macdonald’s absorbing documentary on the rise and fall of British fashion designer John Galliano.
At his peak as artistic director of Christian Dior in the late 1990s and early aughts following a career-making collection for the then-moribund Givenchy — where he was the first English head of a Paris fashion house in 100 years — Galliano was justifiably untouchable.
Pick a descriptor and his consistently fabulous collections embodied it: wild, vibrant, novel, ethereal, otherworldly, stunning. It was the era when models became super, and Galliano dressed them all, gorgeously, from Kate Moss to Naomi Campbell. Red carpets too were ignited by Galliano’s seemingly boundless imagination, which made the designer a big, very bankable deal worldwide.
But he was also exhausted, overextended, alcoholic, pill-popping, and more than a smidge narcissistic. In one of many breathtakingly candid reveals in High & Low, Galliano tells Macdonald, “I couldn’t really tell you when I started to lose touch with reality. It kind of crept up on me.”
Most would pinpoint February 24, 2011, as the moment Galliano went completely off the rails. That evening, in a Paris café, randomly and unprovoked, he started berating other customers, making hateful antisemitic remarks. He was filmed doing it, of course. It turned it there were three such incidents in total registered at Café La Perle.
Galliano lost his gig with Dior, which included his own label, was found guilty of making antisemitic remarks by French courts and was fined €6,000. That was nothing compared to the collateral damage. His name was mud, and he was ostracized from the rarefied world he’d ruled. Worse, he shattered the trust of Jewish friends and followers in the industry, who were left to wonder if he had secretly hated them all along.
Macdonald talks to everyone, from Vogue editor Anna Wintour to actors Penélope Cruz and Charlize Theron plus the above-mentioned models and various fashion reporters. But none offer the widescreen view that an unvarnished, extensively quoted, and clearly — maybe? — contrite Galliano brings to the narrative.
Along with regret, Galliano persuasively presents a sympathetic picture of an obviously increasingly unstable man that no one would meaningfully intervene to help. That included the higher-ups at luxury goods conglomerate LVMH who employed him, reaping enormous profits and profile from his tireless efforts.
Galliano’s involvement in the doc ensures Macdonald has a wealth of pre-fame footage to draw from alongside marquee stuff from the pinnacle of the designer’s fame. Notably, the director presents Galliano’s 1984 graduation show from Central Saint Martins school of art, dubbed “Les Incroyables,” and based on the French Revolution after he’d seen the 1927 film Napolean by Abel Gance. Also included is footage from his first catwalk show, “The Ludic Game” assembled for autumn/winter 1985.
The Napoleonic theme — and scenes from Gance’s influential film —pop up frequently in High & Low. It’s clear that Galliano was also something of a square-peg genius, though no surprise his very traditional family wasn’t exactly supportive of the boy who loved to experiment with his mother’s makeup in the bathroom.
In his nascent days, Galliano was motivated not by fame or money but solely by love of fashion. He never really fell out of love with clothes. And so, his meteoric rise through the ranks of the ruthless and backbiting fashion industry — where he earned much genuine grassroots support — singled him out as favoured son. Which made his ugly spiral that much more baffling and disappointing to all in his immediate orbit and beyond.
Macdonald — who has made acclaimed docs on Bob Marley and Whitney Houston but is perhaps best known for 2006’s intense feature Last King of Scotland — is commendably even-handed, presenting Galliano’s brilliance and awfulness in equal measure while charting a coherent throughline between the extremes.
Even those with no particular interest in fashion will be gripped by this story and dazzled by Galliano’s undeniable artistry. It’s impossible not to be. The film is also a profound reminder of just how complicated we all are.
High & Low: John Galliano. Directed by Kevin Macdonald. With John Galliano, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Penélope Cruz, Charlize Theron, and Anna Wintour. In theatres March 15 at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema (Toronto) and Vancity (Vancouver).