John Galliano loses case for unfair dismissal from Dior, ordered to pay one euro

HE WAS sacked over a drunken anti-Semitic rant, and now designer John Galliano lost his case for unfair dismissal from Dior - and has to pay them one euro.

28/02/2011 WIRE: FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 28, 2011 file photo, Fashion designer John Galliano arrives at a police station in Paris. Christian Dior have fired Galliano in wake of alleged anti-Semitic remarks he made during a dispute at a trendy Paris cafe. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

BRITISH designer John Galliano — sacked three years ago by fashion house Dior over a drunken anti-Semitic rant in a Paris bar — has lost his case for unfair dismissal, lawyers for both parties say.

A Paris labour court rejected his claim and ordered him to pay a symbolic one euro each to Dior and the John Galliano label which was also named in the action. Both are part of the same group.

Galliano’s lawyer Chantal Giraud-van Gaver told AFP she was very disappointed by Tuesday’s ruling, adding that she would be recommending that her client appeal the decision.

She had earlier said the claim was for between 2.4 million euros ($A3.6 million) and 13 million euros ($A19.5 million), depending on how the court chose to classify the dismissal.

John Galliano arrives at a police station in Paris after the 2011 incident.

Until his spectacular downfall, Galliano, 54, had spent nearly 15 years at Dior and is still regarded as one of the most brilliant designers of his generation.

But his glittering career imploded in March 2011 after he was captured in a mobile phone video hurling abuse at customers in a bar in Paris’s historic Jewish quarter.

The Paris criminal court in September 2011 found him guilty of proffering anti-Semitic insults in public — an offence under French law — on two occasions in February 2011 and October 2010.

He was spared jail and instead given suspended fines after the court accepted that he was sorry for his actions which he blamed on drink and drugs.

John Galliano acknowledges applause after Dior's Haute Couture spring-summer 2009.

The flamboyant designer was announced last month as the new creative director of Maison Martin Margiela, in a move expected to reignite his shattered career.

Described by his new employer as one of the “greatest undisputed talents of all time”, his first collection for the avant-garde Margiela label is due on the Paris catwalks in January.