Galliano is known as the fashion editor’s designer – his clothes are innovative and make striking photographs. Menkes praised his “audacious and salacious, ethnic and romantic” clothes as “a pretty good effort”, though she found his tailoring lacked “conviction” and disapproved of the lingerie-look of “hand-painted-panther-chiffon trimmed with lilac lace”. Sarah Mower agreed that his day-wear was “pretty perfunctory”. There is, she says, a long way to go in the mission to rehabilitate Dior One good show doesn’t turn a business round.

“A lot of French houses are associated with very naff products, from umbrellas to neckties to popsocks Gucci made a comeback only after a complete style pogrom It will need hard work on product, marketing, advertising. They are starting with the froth.” And, says Alice Rawsthorn, attempting to lift a staid fashion house by hiring a new designer can leave the businessmen behind the deals with egg on their faces. “Gianfranco Ferre was at Dior before Galliano and it was not a huge success Christian Lacroix got good reviews, but didn’t sell Claude Montana didn’t work out at Lanvin. There are more misses than hits.” Additional reporting by Julie Street in Paris Additional research by Emma E Forrest..

It is no wonder that designers jiz their pants when they see Mouna “I have it, I can’t hide it” Al-Ayoub. Without her it is possible that a great portion of the couture world would collapse “I can’t wait to buy it. Maybe now, I don’t need to go to Chanel,” said Mouna at Galliano’s show. If this had happened, Karl Lagerfeld’s fan would have gone into helicopter overdrive, because Mouna’s “budget” last year at Chanel – where Lagerfeld is designer – was $400,000. Her total annual spend on clothes is rumoured to be pounds 1 million. Born in Kuwait, Mouna, 39, is mother of five children – four boys and one girl, who must have the greatest hand-me-downs in the world.