Archives 2/25- 3/3 2005-2010

The big news in the fashion world this week was the firing of John Galliano for anti-Semitic slurs. The house of Dior had little recourse. Other than that it is so unbecoming and uncivilized, hate speech is a crime in France. I’m of two minds about that. On one hand, the absence of such hateful comments in public life is a subtle social cue to those who may be of like persuasion, without public affirmation it will slowly whither and die. On the other hand, if someone is a jerk, I’d like to know about it. Heaven forbid I unknowingly contribute to their well-being. I had to search the site to see if I’d written about him and yeah, I did. Living in the insular (privileged) cocoon that I am, it is difficult for me to fathom there are still people walking around like this.

Well, dispensing with such unpalatable topics, here are the entries for this week published on Fashion-Incubator over the past six years. If so inspired, there’s over 2,000 more in the archives. I hope your week end is warm, tolerant and loving.

February 25, through March 3, 2005
Entrepreneur’s discussion list
The zen of the survival of the prettiest
Tailoring and The English Cut
Oh joy
Product Review Style# 12658

February 25, through March 3, 2006
A Sunday in Las Cruces
Pimp my style
The Fashion Piracy Paradox pt.2
Meet Henry Hibbard
Home-sewing manufacturers
Designer’s website design
Domestic manufacturing is up
Home-sewing manufacturers pt 2
Reverse engineering standard work pt.6
Lies and body weight
Good Logo Design
On drafting and European Cut

February 25, through March 3, 2007
Why pattern makers resist learning CAD
Do you have patterns for sale?
Fit Couture in Apparel Magazine
Notes Eco Trade Show
MAGIC Show: Publications
Partnerships
Recycled materials

February 25, through March 3, 2008
Global ECO Show review: Ellaroo
Global ECO Show review: Naturally Bamboo
Insurance coverage for designers
Sales Rep Horror Story
5 reasons patents are worthless and more
Showing a line at MAGIC: Rene Geneva
Trudy’s adventures in Las Vegas pt.1
Trudy’s adventures in Las Vegas pt.2
Trudy’s adventures in Las Vegas pt.3
Third Anniversary!
News from you 3/1/08
Pattern puzzle: Hussein Chalayan
Spanish sizing study

February 25, through March 3, 2009
What it’s like to exhibit at the Outdoor Retailer Show
How to transition from Etsy into wholesale pt.1
How to sew V necklines with facings
Funny Monday: Its not just me
Pop Quiz #482 pt.1
Pop Quiz #482 pt.2

February 25, through March 3, 2010
Refashioning sweaters
Looking for a clothing manufacturer?
How to hire a consultant pt.1
What is Reshoring -circuitously

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4 comments

  1. Kathleen,

    The Galliano firing should make clothes shopping easier for you. When your personal shopper brings you your seasonal truckful of couture items to choose from you can say, “Oh I’ll just take the Dior” and be done with it, because you know that the company actively opposes anti-semitism. Unless other companies have been put in similar positions, you don’t know that about them.

    … Or unless you are so cynical that you don’t think Dior actually opposes anti-semitism, they just oppose getting caught. Then you don’t have any more information than you did before.

  2. Reader says:

    Germany also has strong hate crimes legislation. I guess after the whole Nazi genocide thang, they, too, don’t have much confidence that ugly, virulent thoughts will just wither and die.

    Whether or not Dior fired Galliano because of ethical conviction or as a PR damage-control measure, they did the right thing.

  3. Marie-Christine says:

    Galliano apparently was making a habit of these rants. After the first people filed a formal complaint (for being hit as well..) another couple came out with a similar incident from last October, and then yet a 3rd person posted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0gkcv3UTww which you can evaluate for yourselves… Being drunk is no excuse, especially as it probably just means he was disinhibited from expressing his true feelings.

    His firing isn’t as hypocritical as all that.. Dior’s current CEO, Toledano, is Jewish himself. But the whole company is still firmly rooted in Paris’ garment district, which has been traditionally Jewish since before Dior’s founding, much like in NY. Putting up with stuff like that would not just alienate public opinion but many of Dior’s most valued employees, suppliers, etc. And conversely anyone (but the international bean counters) who had any influence on the company would agree with the firing too.

    That said, is that anti-hate-speech law useful? Symbolicly, yes, very much so. Especially as it’s not against one lone kind of racism but all of them. In practice, it’d work much better if it was backed up by some solid anti-discrimination laws. The housing and job situations are a horror if you’re not the Right Kind of person. But it is still very good to be able to point to convictions when objecting to someone, gives you solid ground to say you don’t want anything to do with them. As in Natalie Portman refusing to work with him. As you can object to OJ Simpson on the basis of being a convicted wife-beater even if someone still doesn’t think he’s a murderer. In fact I often use Brigitte Bardot’s multiple convictions on this racist-speech ground to explain to people that she’s not really a role model to dust off in the present days, no matter how short her skirts in the 50s..

  4. Seth Meyerink-Griffin says:

    Here’s the huge irony: Galliano is openly gay. The Nazis put all the gay people that they could identify in concentration and death camps. When Galliano says, “I love Hitler […] People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers would all be f***ing gassed,” he’s forgetting that *he* would be ‘f*** gassed’ too.

    @Marie-Christine: I had been told that the deplorable conditions for immigrants in France was precisely because law forbids collection of ethnic data (along with ethnic discrimination), which prevents cases of discrimination from being proved…

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