Galliano For Margiela: The Verdict

There is very little the fashion industry enjoys more than a happening, which was exactly what took place at 4.30pm this afternoon in an office block near Buckingham Palace where John Galliano chose to show his first collection for Maison Martin Margiela. Little white chairs lined up along the industrial-style steel floor to seat the international fashion gang that had turned out on this dank Monday to support, report and in some cases simply to be where it was "at".

Christopher Bailey had dashed from his menswear show to join designers Jasper Conran, Alber Elbaz and Manolo Blahnik; photographers Paolo Roversi, Tim Walker, Nick Knight and Craig McDean; stylists and editors arrived from around the world, and of course there was Kate Moss, husband Jamie and best friend Fran Cutler in tow.

Galliano's decision to mount his first catwalk show since 2011 at the tail end of London´s menswear schedule sent various messages. By staying out of the Paris couture calendar taking place in only a few weeks' time, he removed himself from going head to head with his old employers at Dior and from returning to the heart of Paris fashion. Instead it enabled him to piggyback off other shows (such as the afternoon's Burberry), which would have lured a number of top fashion editors and retailers to London, and allowed him to present his comeback in a city that he loves as his hometown and a long-time source of inspiration.

The irony of his showing so soon after the brutal murders at Charlie Hebdo and the kosher supermarket in Paris will have been lost on no one. Four years ago Galliano's drunken anti-semitic rant caused such offence that he was exiled and plunged into public disgrace. There are still those who don't feel able to forgive him and at this time of such heightened sensitivity about freedom of speech and religious extremism, I suspect had he the choice, he wouldn't have chosen to stage his comeback in the shadow of such events.

Martin Margiela is a designer who chose invisibility as his USP while John Galliano is one of the most high-profile designers of the age and a man who loves to experiment with his own image. This first show was exactly what you might have expected from the pairing of these opposites. The restrained number of outfits played with deconstruction and the tenets of tailoring, salvage and restitution, luxe and tatters. A breastplate of shells might have adorned a trash-can Boadicea, a dress of carved black leather ribbons fell away into a tattered train. While a Principal Boy opened the show in Harlequin leggings of black and flesh it was closed by a ghostly empress, veiled and silenced by a pearl and bronze mouthguard.

Yes there were a few clothes - a perfect black blazer, a mandarin-collared red velvet gown, an immaculate tuxedo suit to rival the work of any couturier and a single draped LBD but it wasn't a collection intended to scoop up orders (despite the humorous soundtrack of a remixed "Big Spender"). Instead it was a carefully calibrated marker of intent, from the white-coated attendants that littered the building (a Margiela legacy) to Galliano's blink-and-you-missed-him fleeting appearance on the runway at the end of the show (in contrast to his lingering, theatrical performances of old).

There will be some who will no doubt criticise the fact of Galliano's return but they will be the poorer for it. He is unquestionably one of the most imaginative designers of his age and he has done all he can to pay his dues. Not only he but the whole industry should learn from what went before and not invest him nor others too heavily with an unrealistic overload of expectation and adulation. With a clear head, his talent and passion for his work there is much to look forward to now he has got his first steps back into the limelight out of the way.