John Galliano

John Galliano's lawyer won't specify just how much money in damages the designer is seeking in his lawsuit against Dior, but new information about his salary indicates it's going to be a fairly sizable sum.

"He was at the company for a long time and he had a big salary, so the sums demanded will necessarily be high," said Galliano's lawyer Chantal Giraud-van Gaver after the first hearing in his employment dispute against the company on Monday.

Just how much was Galliano making? Papers filed for the hearing revealed the designer was being paid a $1.3 million annual salary, on top of variable compensation (which means bonuses and stock options) as high as $900,000. Dior also paid him a percentage of its annual increase in sales and gave him an annual clothing allowance of $38,850, as well as a grooming budget for personal appearances of $77,700.

At his eponymous label, Galliano earned a salary of $2.6 million a year and a clothing allowance of $90,650. Galliano also acted as a consultant on catwalk shows, ad campaigns, and websites through a company he owns called Cheyenne Freedom, which was paid "hefty" fees. All told, in a good year, Dior could easily spend over $5 million on Galliano's salary and benefits.

When Galliano originally filed the suit in August, he was believed to have asked for over $18 million in damages, but WWD asked Giraud-van Gaver whether a figure approaching $8 million wasn't more accurate.

"If you add it all up, then probably yes, because if you are earning more than €3 million (over $4 million at current exchange) a year and you add severance pay on top, it quickly adds up," she said.

The Labor Relations Court that presided over Monday's hearing has yet to decide whether it can treat Galliano's case as a simply employee/employer dispute because of the nature of his relationship with Dior. The company's lawyer Jean Néret said Galliano was "no ordinary employee. In fact, I would go as far as saying he wasn't an employee at all," he said. "The complexity of his various contracts is sharply at odds with the image of a poor, defenseless employee which the opposing party is trying to project."

Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have joined the chorus of voices backing John Galliano's return to working in the industry.

"We wish John the best of luck with his return to fashion," the two said in a post on their online magazine Swide. "We've always been admirers of his flamboyant talent. He has been missed from the fashion scene these two years and we can't wait to see the collection with Oscar de la Renta."

Just last week, de la Renta shocked the fashion community when he announced that he would welcome Galliano, who was let go from his position at Dior for making anti-Semitic comments in 2010, at his studio for a three-week residency. "Everyone in life deserves a second chance, especially someone as talented as John," de la Renta said at the time. "I think that life is about forgiving and helping people."

All the bits fit to print here, in our daily news roundup.

• Miuccia Prada's sketches of the dresses she designed with Baz Luhrmann for The Great Gatsby have been released. This is the third time Prada has worked with the director; their most recent project was the 1996 film Romeo & Juliet. [Telegraph]
• Move over, eBay: there is a new generation of online resale sites hitting the Internet. [Business of Fashion]
• Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery says that her character, Lady Mary Crawley, influences her personal style. [InStyle]
• Mark your calendars: the Valentino Spring 2013 couture show will be live streamed this Wednesday at 12 p.m. EST. [Valentino]
• Newly relocated John Galliano isn't wasting any time hitting New York's fashionable haunts: he was recently spotted having lunch at Sant Ambroeus with Grace Coddington. [Page Six]
  

• André Leon Talley loves that Michelle Obama is a first lady who isn't afraid to put her hair up in a ponytail. [Vogue]
• Cara Delevingne and Mark Ronson were just a few of the guests spotted at Georgia May Jagger's haunted 21st birthday party. [FabSugar UK]
• Nina Garcia will debut her style makeover web series, Decoding Style With Nina Garcia, tomorrow on Aol on Style's YouTube channel. [Racked]

In a wide-ranging conversation with Fern Mallis on stage at the 92nd Street Y this week, Marc Jacobs said he discussed not taking over for John Galliano in sessions with his psychiatrist.

"It was actually my psychiatrist who said, 'How is this going to improve the quality of your life?' and I said, 'It's not.' I mean, two more shows — and after Galliano, what he has done — when am I going to live my life?" Jacobs asked.

The designer also talked about growing up in New York City, studying at Parsons, and being treated for substance abuse. A few highlights from the conversation below.

On going to college: "Every day was like a fashion parade. There was a little troop of us. It was me, a girl named Susan Martin, Chris Iles, and Tracy Reese. The four of us were inseparable. We were the overachievers. We would do five times what was required just because we really enjoyed it."

On the critics: "There are very few, and I don't mean this in a bitchy way, journalists who I respect. I don't think a lot of them know what they're looking at. . . . I'm fine with constructive criticism but I'm not so good with stupidity. It's one thing to say 'I like or I don't like' but to misread or mislabel something or to be out of sorts because it was raining, or a late show, or you were hungry. That just all feels not valid."

On his sobriety: "I wouldn't say I'm 100 percent sober. What I'm saying is perfection is not my deal. Yeah, maybe I have had a glass of wine or a couple of whiskeys. Maybe I've smoked a joint or something like that. Or other things, but I'm mostly sober."

On what he tells aspiring designers: "What's worked for me is not quitting, being more passionate about what I do, and not giving up. And when I don't believe in myself, turning to other people who believe in me."

Photo by Joyce Culver, courtesy of 92nd Street Y.

Grace Coddington isn't keeping quiet about what she thinks of Alexander Wang replacing her friend Nicolas Ghesquière as creative director of Balenciaga.

Coddington, who said last month that she hoped Ghesquière wouldn't "just give up and walk away" from fashion, has added her voice to the chorus of people commenting on Wang's new job. She told The Huffington Post that she's optimistic about the future of the house. She also shared her thoughts on Ghesquière's possible future plans, and on whether John Galliano will ever make a comeback.

On Wang designing for Balenciaga: "I'm sure Alexander Wang will do really well. He's very well-liked. It's an incredibly difficult thing to take over for Nicolas because there are all the old fuddy-duddy people like me digging their heels in. But you've got to embrace it — it's happened. I'm sure the Gucci people thought long and carefully, they didn't just pull him out of a hat. And he fit all their criteria."

On whether Wang can really replace Ghesquière: "Don't think of it as the same house as it was when Nicolas was the creative director; that's everybody's mistake. Don't think of it as a replacement for Nicolas, because it isn't. Alexander has a whole different agenda. He's a very confident young man, he's cute-looking, girls love him, he's an 'It' person and he makes very affordable clothes. I haven't spoken to him, but he can only do what he can do. He can't be somebody else, and he certainly can't be Nicolas."

On Nicolas Ghesquière's next steps: "He will bide his time and come back. He's too brilliant to just disappear. He's very passionate about what he does. He's not caught up in fashion and celebrity at all. I don't think he's going to go off and become a sculptor like Helmut Lang, either."

On whether Galliano can come back to the industry: "I hope he will return, but I don't know. That's a tough one to get over. That's tougher than the Gucci people thinking they want a change of face. I love John; I think he's brilliant. He certainly intends to come back — when he's ready."

Interviews with Raf Simons are few and far between, but the new creative director of Dior says it's not because he's press-shy. "I don't know where you got the idea that I'm aloof," he says in the December issue of Vogue Australia.

Far from aloof, Simons is almost effusive, touching on everything from John Galliano (he says he doesn't find his designs "relevant") to his vision for Dior's future. He also talks about making the transition from Jil Sander to one of the most coveted jobs in fashion and how he wants to change couture. Highlights from the interview below.

On John Galliano: "I have so much respect for John's technical skill and the fantasy, it's just something that I don't find relevant now, especially when it restricts a woman, because in every other area they have so much freedom now."

On getting the Dior job and his sudden departure from Jil Sander: "I'm not going to lie to you. We [Bernard Arnault, head of LVMH, and Sidney Toledano, president of Dior] had been talking for months about the job, but talks happen all the time in this business. That doesn't mean something is necessarily going to come out of it. . . I felt more like a psychiatrist than a designer in the end [at Jil Sander], just to keep my team's spirits up."

On his final show at Jil Sander: "That final collection was not in any way an audition for the Dior job. It was just something I wanted to do."

On Dior's impact on fashion: "The more I analyzed the pieces, the more I realized how many people have built their careers on Christian Dior's patterns, from Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garcons onwards. What he achieved in 10 years at his house is unprecedented."

On what he's trying to accomplish: "I want to get away from couture just being done for a picture, or for a single moment on the red carpet. I want to try and convince women that couture can be worn in the day and that there's a reality and a relevance there, because that's what Mr. Christian Dior wanted. In my opinion, Christian Dior was never, ever theater."

Photo courtesy of Dior, via Vogue Australia.

John Galliano is believed to have sued Dior for €15 million (about $18.8 million at current exchange) in a French labor court.

According to The Daily Telegraph, Galliano has filed an employee/employer dispute with the Paris Conseil des prud'hommes, an industrial tribunal that hears cases regarding employment contracts. While details of Galliano's complaint to the court are not known, his hearing is scheduled for Feb. 4, 2013.

Dior dismissed Galliano last March after he was accused of making anti-Semitic remarks in a Paris bar. Last week, the newly installed French President Francois Hollande stripped Galliano of his membership in the country's Legion of Honor.