Embattled designer impresario John Galliano will restart his fashion career as creative director of Maison Martin Margiela and is expected to show his first designs for the house in January during Paris Couture Week. The collection will be the first under Galliano's creative control since he was unceremoniously dismissed by Dior in March 2011.

"Margiela is ready for a new charismatic creative soul," Renzo Rosso, president of OTB, which controls Margiela, said today. "John Galliano is one of the greatest, undisputed talents of all time - a unique, exceptional couturier for a maison that always challenged and innovated the world of fashion. I look forward to his return to create that fashion dream that only he can create, and wish him to here find his new home."