it's been a ride to read this as condé nast has rolled out a series of efforts to bring john galliano back into the public eye and possibly into a more prestige house than maison margiela. it shows the initial stages of a process that is unfolding right now, in the case of john galliano's career and image rehabilitation, but also in the production of runway fashion as spectacle ultimately geared towards sales of more affordable mass-produced luxury items, the rise of the fashion conglomerate and the evolution of the figure of the designer into that of the creative director. 

as a double biography it's sort of episodic and formulaic in its structure, but i suppose that's due to the sheer amount of information that has to be condensed in one book. the downside to that is that whatever reflection or insight it has on mcqueen and galliano as people or participants in their relationships with the people around them are concise to the point of feeling somewhat shallow, and its eventual conclusion as well as thomas' take on the phenomenon that their two stories describe seem rushed. 

that said, the information in itself is interesting and a total blast to read with a tab of vogue runway open, and just the accumulation of it shows the effect of a large-scale economic process on the actual bodies of the people participating in it; i just wish this was explored further.