He announced his departure in a thoughtful social media caption this morning.

In a very personal Instagram post this morning, John Galliano announced that he is stepping down as creative director of Maison Margiela. The designer has been in the position for ten years and a successor has yet to be named, nor do we know where Galliano is going next. As he wrote, “The rumors…Everyone wants to know, and everyone wants to dream. When the time is right, all will be revealed. For now, I take this time to express my immense gratitude.”

The announcement comes after a memorable finale year for Galliano and the house of Margiela, namely due to the energy and excitement of his Spring 2025 Couture show in Paris. The collection was peak Galliano–a dreamscape of Brassai-like figures dressed in sublimely crafted costumes sauntering and slithering down a runway staged beneath a rainy night sky, under the Pont-d’Alexandre III bridge. The show went viral on social media, with ecstatic fashion fanatics extolling the virtues of Galliano’s greatness and beauty experts fawning over Pat McGrath’s incredible porcelain doll skin makeup. Over the last several months, a behind-the-scenes book was published and Galliano directed a film about the making of the collection that debuted at Paris Fashion Week this September.

Aside from that show however, no one should forget that Galliano’s tenure at Margiela has been important from the start. When he joined the house in 2014, he was four years into his sobriety after a very public anti-Semitic rant which found him in court and in rehab and nearly destroyed his legacy. Margiela was something of a fresh start for him, a place where he could return to the work that he loves deeply and try to find his footing in both the real and imagined worlds again. In his statement, Galliano thanked the founder and president of Margiela’s parent company OTB Renzo Rosso for taking a chance on him in those early days. The designer wrote, “The greatest, most precious gift he gave me was the opportunity to once again find my creative voice when I had become voiceless.” He noted that, essentially, this job saved his life, and he added, “My wings mended, and I better understood the all-consuming act of creativity.”