John Galliano: feet firmly on the ground during economic downdown

"Of course I’m sensitive to the economy. Of course I’m aware of it. I read the newspapers; I watch TV," he said Sunday. "But [dealing with it] is not my job. My job is to do the best I can to show the possibilities of Dior. When you’re standing in a hurricane, you have to keep your feet firmly on the ground. If you panic, whew…you fly away."

Galliano’s notion of being grounded:

a collection rooted in the parallel beliefs that Dior must not surrender its identity to recession, but that now is not the time to go iconoclast-crazy. He thus celebrated the house iconography in all its 1947 audacity. Along the way, he sometimes turned his tight jacket and bodice inside out in homage to Dior’s founder. "I really studied the constructions and discovered his soul," Galliano said. "I could read his decisions."

Ref: http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/christian-dior-spring-couture-2009-1949807?module=today#/wwd


My Analysis -
I interprete Mr.Galliano's words as "stick to the dior concept" - New Look, creating dreams to peoples. Designer's role is to give hopes and imaginations to people, no matter how worse the global economy is. Like Christian Dior, the time he founded his brand (1947) is the trough of that time economy (end of WWII). but he still designed New Look at that time. Resemble to nowadays, Mr.Galliano's job should feet on to the Dior concept and the collections cannot be influrence by financial tsunami much.