NEW YORK (JTA) — A New York Post cover story skewered John Galliano for supposedly dressing in Chasidic garb for New York Fashion Week.
Galliano, the former head designer at Christian Dior who was fired after making anti-Semitic slurs in a Paris cafe, was pictured dressed in what the Post claimed was Chasidic clothing aimed at mocking Orthodox dress. The photograph ran underneath the headline "Shmuck!"
But the Anti-Defamation League, which recently declared that Galliano had rehabilitated himself following his anti-Semitic outburst, came to the designer’s defense, saying that Galliano’s dress was not Chasidic.
"This is John Galliano being John Galliano," the ADL’s national director, Abraham Foxman, said in a statement Wednesday. "His dress is always eccentric and his hair is always worn long. This is, at the very least, ignorance on the part of the reporters and editors at the Post, or, at worst, a deliberate, malicious distortion in an effort to sell newspapers."
Some Jewish figures, including Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, found the outfit offensive. Hikind told the New York Post that the outfit appeared to be mocking the Jewish community.
“Who is he mocking?” Hikind said. “The way the socks look, the jacket, the peyos … My question is, who’s he laughing at?"
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