Zara has launched the first instalment of its creative partnership with John Galliano, with the Re(form) collection reworking pieces from the retailer’s archive using techniques associated with haute couture.
Launched on 1 October, Re(form) Vol. 1 is the first collection from the two-year partnership, marking the first time Galliano has worked with a mass-market fashion retailer.
The genderless collection takes existing Zara garments and accessories as starting points, with Galliano cutting, dismantling and reassembling them into new designs.
The collection draws on characters from Galliano’s archive, including Les Incroyables and Les Merveilleuses – the dandies and divas of post-Revolutionary France – alongside references to gardening wardrobes and film noir.
Several of the techniques developed for the collection involve transforming the proportions or function of existing garments.
The “Shi/ft” technique, for example, sees an archival Zara shirt enlarged to three times its original size and foil-printed to resemble a leather coat, while other pieces include a lace dress reworked into a ruffled neckpiece and trousers and shorts spliced into sans-culotte breeches.
The “Flix” technique layers garments to create the appearance of a coat, while “Deep Pockets” changes the position and structure of tailoring pockets to alter the silhouette and attitude of the jacket.
Other techniques include “Wrapture”, which combines skirts, slips and linings into wrap skirts, and “Pinch-to-Zoom”, which alters the scale of coats through shrinking and enlargement.
The collection also includes accessories created from archival Zara pieces, including the reversible Tri-Chic bag, which can be worn as a handheld, shoulder or backpack style.
Shoes, hats and other accessories have also been reworked, with milliner Stephen Jones collaborating with Galliano on the headwear.
The collection comes shortly after Galliano withdrew from a planned exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art dedicated to his career and legacy.
In August, the designer said he had decided, following discussions with the Met and others involved, that it was “best for the exhibition not to go ahead at this time”. The decision followed criticism of the proposed exhibition’s focus on Galliano’s career following his 2011 conviction in France relating to anti-Semitic comments.
Galliano left Maison Margiela in 2024 after a decade as creative director. He previously held the same role at Dior for 15 years and was creative director of Givenchy before that.
The Zara partnership marks his first move into mass-market fashion, with future Re(form) collections expected as part of the initial two-year agreement.