| Zara’s Re{form} collection, designed by John Galliano, goes on sale Thursday on zara.com and in Zara stores. Prices run from under €20 for a scarf to €719 for a bias-cut gown. A Marais mansion in Paris shows the collection by appointment, Thursday through Tuesday. It is Galliano’s first collection since leaving Maison Margiela in December 2024. |
The British designer, who pulled out of the Met a month ago, has chosen the world’s best-known fast-fashion retailer for his comeback, making his clothes hard to buy. It is a strange and revealing comeback for both Zara and John Galliano.
Zara took over a historic mansion in the Marais district of Paris to present the first Re{form} collection. Zara collection, designed by John Galliano. Visitors need an appointment, and the mansion is open from Thursday through Tuesday. The clothes will go on sale Thursday on zara.com and in Zara stores, including the flagship stores in Madrid and London. Temporary shops are nothing new. This one requires an hour of your time before you can spend any money, which is an ambitious request for a brand known for its speed.
A Marais mansion turns retail into a staged journey
Past the security checkpoint, the courtyard is arranged like a small neighborhood. There are cobblestones, a Wallace fountain, a corner café, a flower stand, and a cobbler who washes shoes in giant tumblers.
Further on, the rooms quickly change mood. One darkened corner leads to a video wall where a train bursts into the space with a gust of air and a roar to match. Another room is lit by artificial moonlight, and monitors flicker through cracks in the walls. Galliano appears on them, fussing over garments while saying things like, “I didn’t want to dumb it down.”
The reading room is where the exhibition earns its seriousness. Hemingway novels sit near a small statue of Napoleon under a bell jar. A delicately embroidered bicorn hat shares the space with sketches from “Les Incroyables,” Galliano’s 1984 graduation collection that launched his career. All of these items come from Galliano’s own shelves.
Galliano rebuilds Zara archive pieces from the inside out
The game room reveals his creative process. Galliano started with ordinary pieces from the Zara archive, such as a white cotton dress shirt and a calico slipdress with a Zara Slips label. His team filmed the transformation of the garments with GoPros. The slipdress ended up covered in black tulle with a heavy band of faux fur around the hem and was designed to be worn under a woolen coat.
About a dozen mock work stations play the footage on small monitors. You can flip through stacks of works in progress and pick up a small speaker to hear Galliano describe his “memory of” technique, which leaves traces of a garment’s features – pockets, for instance. Margiela followers will recognize the habit of explaining the work out loud.
The collection text makes a big statement: “Re{form} is an act of revolution, reconstruction, and renewal… the couturier’s exchange with the archives of the fashion purveyor.” The racks are more modest, and I mean that kindly.
The clothes exhibit familiar tendencies. Dresses are cut on the bias. Layers are deconstructed to reveal a lining or underwear beneath. Fabrics range from chiffon and georgette to point d’esprit, charmeuse, tulle, and net. Napoleonic naval coats and Stephen Jones-made ceremonial hats belong to the same vocabulary. The Flix is a sheer coat designed to be worn over other coats. The Deep Pockets are cut large enough to change the way you stand. Steven Meisel shot the campaign.
The most useful detail may be the starting point. The white cotton dress shirt is the most ordinary garment in any wardrobe. The project’s real pitch is that an ordinary piece can be taken apart and rebuilt into something with a point of view. The coats and hats are another obvious entry point.
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Re{form} replaces fast retail with a couture-style ritual
The sales floor consists of two brightly lit rooms arranged like a couture salon from years past, though some of the candelabras and paintings hang upside down. Nothing sits on the racks ready to take home. Attendants with iPads will bring the garment you want to a fitting room and carefully package your purchase.
Prices range from under 20 euros for a scarf to 719 euros for a bias-cut gown with floral tendrils in point d’esprit. That top figure is steep for Zara but modest for anything bearing Galliano’s name. It also differs greatly from the frenzy of Karl Lagerfeld’s H&M collaboration more than twenty years ago, which sparked a wave of high-low partnerships. Zara is asking customers to slow down, which is more difficult than putting a famous name on a hanger.
The contrast with the H&M model is the real story. Lagerfeld’s collection created urgency through limited stock: first come, first served. Zara creates urgency through friction, with an appointment, a walk through the rooms, a fitting, and an attendant. In practice, the entry point is accessible, with the cheapest piece being an under-20-euro scarf and the most expensive piece being a dress. You can make an appointment at the Marais mansion or visit zara.com or Zara stores starting Thursday.
Galliano returns with Zara one month after the Met withdrawal
On Wednesday night, Galliano co-hosted a dinner with Marta Ortega Pérez, the non-executive chair of Zara’s parent company, Inditex. She brought him into the fold. Photos were banned at what was described as a “private social gathering rather than a media event.” This launch was one of the more discreet events of Paris Fashion Week.
The calm looks deliberate. Less than a month ago, Galliano withdrew from a retrospective planned for May at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The prospect revived public backlash, pushback from donors, and criticism from government officials regarding his drunken outbursts in 2010 and 2011. These incidents led to his dismissal from Christian Dior and a conviction in a Paris court. “I do not want the debate surrounding me to put the Met in a difficult position or distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute,” he said in a statement.
Galliano left Maison Margiela in December 2024, and this is his first collection since then. Zara announced the two-year collaboration last March. According to the Spanish company, he will create seasonal collections based on the retailer’s past seasons, “deconstructing and reconfiguring them into new seasonal expressions and creations.”
Now, the clothes must speak for themselves. Try them on. Check the seams and linings and those oversized pockets. The concept is interesting, but the garments must hold up once you are back on the street. Zara’s real gamble is not the Galliano name, but whether a brand built on speed can convince anyone that slowness is worth paying for.
