John Galliano Is the Latest Designer to Team Up With Zara

John Galliano is back, though maybe not in the way you would expect. Two years after stepping down as the creative director of Maison Margiela, the British designer is returning to the industry with help from Zara. He will team up with the Spanish retailer for a two-year creative partnership that will bring his work to the masses.

With this deal, Galliano will have access to Zara’s past season archives, which he will deconstruct and reconfigure into new creations. The Zara x Galliano collections will then release seasonally, with the first drop set for September 2026. As of now, that is all the information available. There is no word on the production amount of these collections or the prices, but we can likely expect some of the most inexpensive rates for Galliano’s designs given Zara’s involvement.

Galliano has kept a low profile since he left his post at Maison Margiela at the end of 2024. The departure came as a bit of a surprise, considering it was hot off the heels of Galliano’s Spring 2024 Artisanal show, a dramatic and technically exceptional collection still discussed (and worn) two years after its presentation. He told Vogue that since leaving Margiela, he has been “going to museums, walking through the woods without my phone, getting lost but not being afraid to get lost, and relying on instinct again, reconnecting with instinct, like breathing correctly.”

This is hardly the first time Zara has pulled talent from the upper echelon of the fashion industry. In recent years, the Spanish brand has collaborated with Narcisco Rodriguez, Stefano Pilati, Kate Moss, and Steven Meisel, among others. Galliano’s partnership, though, is the first with an extended contract that promises multiple collections over the course of two years.

“I’m super excited, because it’s not something I’ve done before, so that kind of tickles me—the newness, the excitement, the actual process,” Galliano said to Vogue of the collab. “Even with my team, I have to keep reminding them daily: No, it’s not this, and it’s not that. We are re-authoring. It’s been quite fun, and I just think it’s a very positive thing to be doing at this time, and really sustainable from a creative point of view, which is super interesting to me.”

Ever since leaving Margiela, there has been much speculation about Galliano’s next move. Many hoped he would return to his namesake brand, which he was fired from in 2011 after an antisemitic tirade that turned him into an industry pariah. Galliano has slowly been working toward rehabilitating his image in the 15 years since, and it’s possible this move with Zara is a way to reintroduce himself to the mass public.