Now, Voyager.(John Galliano's plight as designer)

Byline: AS TOLD TO HAMISH BOWLES

From London's club scene to Paris's couture houses, John Galliano 's odyssey was hard-won. The designer recalls his defining moments.

My journey began in Gibraltar, the peninsula in the strait that divides Spain from Morocco. I lived there until I was six. Even my walk to school would inspire mepast the souks, smells, herbs, and Mediterranean colors. It was so vivid, so vibrant. My curiosity stayed with me, blossomed, as I became a traveler through life.

We moved to London in 1966. I will never forget the change in colors, clothes, and culture: This seemed so much more important to me than the grayness and the climatethe idea that there was a whole new world out there that smelled like wet chalk. My taste for travel and adventure, my quest for beauty, had begun. The idea of cultures colliding is something that continues to inform the way I work, research, and create.

I hadn't been thinking about fashion in high schoolat seventeen, I was studying languages. But somehow I ended up in textile classes, and on my teachers' advice I got a portfolio together and went to Saint Martins, where they really encouraged you to express yourself, to throw buckets of blue paint all over the wall! I applied for the fashion course.

And then there was the nightlife. (I used to call it "research"I still do!) Thursday nights would be the legendary club Taboo; you would start getting ready on Tuesday. Every week it had to be a different look. London was really rocking the spotlight. During this time I met the people I still work with todayJeremy Healy, the deejay, and the great milliner Stephen Jones.

In 1984, I had my graduation show, Les Incroyablesmy first collection. I'd set out to conquer the world, and now everything clicked. Every piece had to have character, a sense that it had been lived in. So I used little magic techniques I'd learned in the theater, where I worked as a dresser.