Paris Fashion Week opened with a particularly nasty taste in the mouth. As a stark reminder, staring out from the back page of the Chambre Syndicale handbook is Natalie Portman, the Jewish-American actress who just a week ago expressed her disgust with John Galliano and denounced all ties with him after witnessing his now infamous anti-Semitic rant on YouTube.
The ongoing drama that has embroiled the fashion world for more than a week is not Lady Gaga's Mugler runway appearance, but Galliano's arrest over alleged anti-Semitic comments he made at a Paris bar, a video made public by a British tabloid newspaper and his sudden dismissal from luxury brand Christian Dior.
Images of the inebriated designer slurring about his love for Adolf Hilter have now been broadcast around the world. How are Dior and the designer ever going to recover?
In Paris, most editors agree that Dior had little choice but to dump their star designer of 14 years and distance themselves from this public relations disaster. At the brand's show on Friday, police were present as hordes of editors, buyers and the like squeezed through the entrance to the Musee Rodin. Photographers flanked both sides, snap happy at the controversy - it was more like a crime scene than a fashion show.
Dior had become the most talked about show this season, but for all the wrong reasons. Despite rumours that editors would boycott the event - if it went ahead at all - the masses showed up to witness what would be Galliano's swansong.
Before the show began, there was some serious housekeeping to do. Dior's chief executive, Sidney Toledano, made an emotional 10-minute speech in which he spoke of Monsieur Dior's vision and those committed to sustaining it, while expressing his support for the house's 'collective duty to never forget the Holocaust'.
Galliano's name was not uttered once - instead the show was credited to the 'extraordinary, creative and marvellous efforts' of the artisans and seamstresses who work behind the scenes at Dior's atelier. Just like that, the divorce was signed, sealed and delivered.