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Blog / John Galliano Makes Zara Debut With Re{form} Collection

John Galliano Makes Zara Debut With Re{form} Collection

John Galliano Makes Zara Debut With Re{form} Collection

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Photo Credit: Photo by Quang Vuong on Pexels
Home/ John Galliano Makes Zara Debut With Re{form} Collection

Zara put the first volume of Re{form}, its collaboration with John Galliano, on sale on 1 October. The collection is sold primarily online at zara.com in nine markets: the US, Japan, South Korea, China, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. In the US, it is online-only at launch, while the flagships in London and Madrid also stock it. Prices run from $30 to $999, from tees to outerwear.

The drop is the first time Galliano, who ran both Dior and Maison Margiela as creative director and left Margiela in December 2024, has designed for the mass market. Zara announced the collaboration in March and has signed him for an initial two years, following guest designers including Stefano Pilati, Anna Sui, Narciso Rodriguez and Samuel Ross.

Zara’s Luxury Ambitions Take Shape with John Galliano

Between October 2024 and October 2025, Zara closed 60 stores worldwide while investing in higher-end flagships with coffee shops and designer collaborations attached. Executives describe the closures as part of a $1 billion global strategy to improve long-term profitability and boost online sales.

On 30 January 2026, the brand also closed its very first shop, the A Coruña store that opened in 1975, because the building was too small for the current store concept. Re{form} sits at the top of Zara’s price range, with the sheer dresses and coats costing roughly $750 to $1,000, still well below what comparable Galliano pieces cost at Margiela and Dior.

How John Galliano Reworks Zara’s Archive

An archival coat has become a net dress with faux fur trims. A shirt is enlarged to three times its size until it passes for a leather coat, two pairs of trousers have been cut and rejoined as sans-culotte pants, and a lace shift dress now sits at the neck as a ruffled collar.

Galliano starts from garments in Zara’s past seasons and, in the brand’s words, views them as prototypes, cutting and dismantling existing creations before reassembling them into new ones.

Zara describes the process as physical and digital hacking combined with enlargement or reduction and says new materials are used for every reworked piece. The launch film carries the line “Authored by Couturier John Galliano. Built from our Memory, Made for Now.”

Volume 1 has 35 looks made up of 157 pieces in a genderless collection, shot for the campaign by Steven Meisel, and Galliano gave each look a French title and a description of his work and materials. Zara unveiled the first installment during Paris Fashion Week. W described the range as made for layering and noted that it points back to some of Galliano’s most recognisable work as well as to Zara’s archive, picking out a bin-liner-inspired piece that recalls his spring/summer 2000 Clochard collection for Dior.

Inside Re{form} Collection: From Reconstructed Coats to Stephen Jones Hats

Zara cites Les Incroyables and Les Merveilleuses, the rebellious dandies and divas of post-Revolutionary France, as the starting point for the clothes. The Incroyables turn up in overcoats and frock coats cut from the woollens of a classic men’s wardrobe, some with a Vichy check pocket lining, and the Merveilleuses in dresses of muslin voile and tulle.

Zara adds the bourgeois gardening wardrobe and the glamour of film noir as further lenses.

The shoes come from Zara’s own archive, among them naval boots and leather T-strap heels. Galliano brought in the milliner Stephen Jones for headwear, and the caps now come as Les Merveilleuses-style bonnets with beak-like visors and lace details.

John Galliano’s Next Chapter After Maison Margiela

Galliano, 65, helped create Oscar de la Renta’s Fall 2013 collection before Margiela hired him the following year. Stylists continue to dress clients in his designs, and his work was heavily present on the 2024 Met Gala red carpet.

News that the Costume Institute was to give him an exhibition and Met Gala for spring 2027 broke after Zara’s March announcement. The show was meant to weigh his creative achievements against the comments and behaviour that changed his career in 2011, and after sustained backlash, the Met and Galliano announced on 31 August that the showcase would not move forward, with museum leadership, including Director Max Hollein and Vogue’s Anna Wintour, supporting the decision.

Zara’s Re{form} Pop-Up in Paris

In Paris, from 1 to 6 October, Zara has taken over a private townhouse at 70 rue des Archives in the heart of the Marais. Entry to see the collection is by appointment through a form displayed on the homepage of its website, and visitors get a personalised welcome on arrival. The staging starts from Galliano’s research and sketchbooks, and the couture salon built around them has been deliberately taken apart, its bevelled walls and exposed structures left on view.

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