Spanish retailer Zara has entered a two-year creative partnership with designer John Galliano to re-author its archives. This marks his return to fashion after leaving Maison Margiela in 2024. The collaboration stems from Galliano's friendship with Inditex chair Marta Ortega Perez.
John Galliano, who served as creative director at Christian Dior from 1997 to 2011 and then spent ten years at Maison Margiela, departed the latter in 2024 after his final Artisanal show. In the two years since, he has focused on personal recharge, visiting museums, walking in woods, and reconnecting with instinct, as he described to Vogue during Paris Fashion Week. He has been working secretly in a Paris-area atelier since January, developing toiles informed by form and proportion, beyond gender and seasons, with the first collection set for stores in September 2026. The partnership originated through Galliano's acquaintance with Marta Ortega Perez, Inditex chair since 2022 and daughter of founder Amancio Ortega. They connected via her MOP Foundation, established in 2022 in A Coruña, Spain, which hosts exhibitions featuring photographers like Steven Meisel and Irving Penn. Zara, under Ortega Perez, has previously collaborated with designers such as Narciso Rodriguez and Stefano Pilati, and released capsules with Kate Moss and Meisel, but this two-year deal with Galliano is distinctive. Galliano shared enthusiasm: “I’ve been curating some of Zara’s recent archives. The idea is that I will re-author them.” He added, “I’m super excited, because it’s not something I’ve done before... really sustainable from a creative point of view.” The project excites him for its newness and the platform's reach. Recently, in January, Galliano attended Jonathan Anderson’s haute couture debut for Dior, where Anderson praised him: “For me in the modern-day world, he is Dior.” Galliano views this as entering act three of his life.
