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It wasn’t very zen.
While on vacation at the exclusive Henri Chenot spa, the New York publicist Lauren London alleged that she witnessed something bone-chilling: a visibly disturbed John Galliano heckling her friend for speaking Hebrew.
“My friend was on the phone speaking English with her daughter,” said London in an August 1 post on Instagram. “Then she switched languages and started speaking Hebrew. The minute Galliano heard Hebrew, he started screaming ‘Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.” Over and over. On repeat until my friend hung up the phone. It was July.”
When London’s friend — who has since been identified as Sabine Cimber Goldberg — asked if Galliano took issue with her language, which is spoken almost exclusively by Jewish communities in hundreds of countries worldwide, London reported that “he promptly and unapologetically responded that he did.”
In the post, London also described the “hatred” still present in the disgraced designer, who was fired from Christian Dior in 2011 after shouting antisemitic and anti-Asian slurs at his fans. “He told her to please [throw out his clothes]… He is a racist.”
New York’s most influential politicians and culture-makers seem to agree.
After an announcement on July 31 that Galliano, now 65, would be the subject of his own Costume Institute exhibition and its accompanying Met Gala, outcry came from politicians like New York City Council speaker Julie Menin, fashion plates like Jill Kargman and museum donors like Alice Tisch, who condemned the decision to highlight Galliano as “a failure of governance” on the part of the museum and Costume Institute leader Anna Wintour.
Galliano denied that the antisemitic incident happened when questioned by the New York Times this weekend.
But London, who has worked with fashion brands like Valentino and Jimmy Choo as a founder of the London Mischer Communications agency, seems satisfied with the outcome.
Today on Instagram, she posted a headline declaring “John Galliano Bows Out of Met Museum Show After Criticism Mounts” with her own poetic thoughts superimposed over the screenshot:
“Bowed out / Forced out / Potato / Potahto / Tomato / Tomatho… Just happy he is OUT!”
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