French police briefly detained British fashion designer John Galliano in Paris on Thursday evening for alleged assault and making anti-Semitic remarks, a police source told AFP on Friday.
The detention in Paris' fashionable Marais district came after Dior's chief
designer allegedly verbally accosted a couple seated on a cafe terrace.
Galliano was drinking at a bar before the altercation in which he allegedly hurled insults at a couple. He was arrested and taken to a police station for a sobriety test where he was found him to be just over the legal limit.
Galliano, who has been based in Paris for 20 years, is a regular face in the Marais district where he has often been seen driving a garish classic car, an old-fashioned yellow taxi.
The area is the historic centre of the Jewish community in Paris and was heavily targeted in the deportation round-ups of the Nazi occupation. In recent years, its narrow streets have been taken over by fashionable shops and bars.
Galliano's lawyer strongly denied accusations of anti-Semitism.
"For the moment we don't know what led him to address the couple," the police source said. "We don't yet know if they knew each other or not."
The designer was released pending charges being filed.
Galliano's lawyer Stephane Zerbib told AFP the designer "formally denies
the accusations of anti-Semitism made against him."
Galliano "is not at all in this state of mind (and) will explain later," Zerbib said, adding that "legal action will be taken against those making such accusations."
The Christian Dior fashion house declined to comment to AFP.
Gibraltar-born Galliano, 50, took over the creative helm at Dior in 1996.
He would have been focused this week on preparing his fall-winter collections for Christian Dior and his own label during next week's Paris Fashion Week.
The moustachioed designer has styled himself publicly as a neo-modern Edwardian dandy, assuming rock star poses at the end of his shows.
But backstage he is rather shy and more interested in discussing the technical aspects of his creations.
Galliano, born to a British plumber father and a Spanish mother, has been billed as one of the most influential designers of our time.
He attended London's renowned Saint Martin's College of Art and Design, where his 1984 graduation show called "Les Incroyables" was themed on the 1789 French revolution.
He moved to Paris in 1993. His often spectacular shows are inspired by history and his own travels around the world. In January, Galliano came out with the most masculine collection of any during the spring-summer Paris menswear shows, themed on Siberian winters, Russian exiles and the ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev.
A week later, for Christian Dior's most spectacular fall-winter haute couture show in years, he reached deep into the New Look heritage of the Paris fashion house with creations inspired by 1950s fashion illustrator Rene Gruau.