John Galliano is joining forces with Spanish retailer Zara

Designer John Galliano, who departed Maison Margiela in 2024, is back, and this time it will be in partnership with Spanish retailer Zara.

In a short statement, Zara confirmed it has inked a two-year creative partnership with Galliano, who will “re-author the brand’s archives through a series of seasonal collections”.

The move will see Galliano working directly with garments from Zara’s past seasons, “deconstructing and reconfiguring them into new seasonal expressions and creations”.

Zara added: “Guided by a couture process and authorship, the collections will be released seasonally over the course of the partnership.”

Further details on the collaboration will be “announced in due course,” added the retailer, with the first collection due in September 2026.

Galliano has had a storied if not controversial career, most notably serving as creative director of the luxury French fashion house Christian Dior for 15 years, before being fired in 2011 following racist and anti-Semitic outbursts. Following a period of exile from the fashion industry, he returned to Maison Margiela, where he spent a decade from 2014 to 2024 as artistic director, merging his romantic style with the house's deconstructive, conceptual DNA.

He is the latest to collaborate with Zara, the Spanish retailer has previously worked with designers Stefano Pilati, Anna Sui, Narciso Rodriguez, Samuel Ross and Ludovic de Saint Sernin, as well as supermodel Kate Moss.