One-on-one with Dior's John Galliano

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[Interviewer] One thing

that always distinguished your career

is this amazing ability to absolutely soak yourself

in whatever's turning your on.

It's a little bit like being an actor

and playing an amazing part and when you leave the part,

little bit of it stays with you.

Do you feel design is a little bit like that for you?

For me, certainly, I live it, I breathe it,

I become that character, but I do discard that character

as soon as I'm onto the next scene.

It does stay as a distant memory,

but I'm onto the next scene very fast.

[Interviewer] So who's the real John Galliano?

You're talking to him tonight.

[Interviewer] How would you describe yourself now

at this point in your life?

[laughs] Still very curious, romantic.

I think one really has to understand the path,

as I've said before, and really use that

as a springboard for the future,

and in the past, I have been literal

and had to be literal really to understand.

And now one can work in a much more abstracted manor.

It's like reading a fabulous book

that you read when you were 18.

When you read it when you're 27

and with that little bit more experience of life,

you have different interpretation, different play on it.

So one does that in one's design career I think.

You often go back to periods or muses.

I often harp back to the 18th centuries, as you know,

and the French Revolution.

I don't know why.

I find that a fascinating time, a violent time,

almost like the common denominator through my career.

It repeats, it comes up, and resources me.

The thing that defines a sense of irony

you find in the Galliano collection

that bridges sense of humor.

What I do at Dior is completely respectful to the codes,

and the tradition and the 10 years of blueprint

that Mr. Dior laid down.

I think that's what defines

the difference between the two collections.

I love the whole creative process,

and I love finding the solutions to technical challenges,

the trialing between the trial and,

before you arrive to the final silhouette of the line.

I love doing that process,

often there's surprises or accidents which are genius,

and unexpected, and very far removed from

that initial two-dimensional sketch.

The idea that you started with

has turned into something quite, quite different.

The buyer scouting, for instance,

is something that's constantly teaching you something new

depending on the fabric and how you drape it,

how it stretches, how it drapes.

Each fabric reacts differently

so it's a nonstop learning process with something like that.

And there've been many accidents in

that we have thought were, maybe 15 years ago, incorrect,

but now we'll love it.

That hellfire's cut is part of my secret you know.

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I got great teams, great teams, I love it,

both at Dior and at Galliano.

I do know a lot of them are like family.

They've been with me for a long time,

since I left school

and we're still enjoying it.

It's more like a tribe. We're still having

the family.

Yeah, you're thankful it's a tribe.

[Interviewer] And you're the Chieftan.

[John laughs]

Big chief.

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