John Gallianos Career All About Over CelebritiesALert

The 50-year-old will seek to cast doubt on accusations he hurled anti-Semitic abuse at three people - a museum curator and her boyfriend and another woman thought to be a Paris shop assistant - as he sat in a drink and drug stupor at a Paris café.

He will hope to persuade the court that he is not a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semite but a fashion star unable to cope with his high-pressure job, who lost his way in drink, Valium and sleeping pills and had no idea what he was saying.

Failure to do so could see him receive a six-month prison term and 22,500 euros fine.

Timeline of the John Galliano scandal

Whatever the verdict in the historic building where Marie Antoinette was sentenced to death by guillotine, the task of saving his neck in the cut-throat world of fashion appears even taller.

Days after his arrest and in the midst of Paris fashion week, the Dior fashion house sacked him as its creative director, citing a zero-tolerance policy on racism and anti-Semitism.

That ended one of the biggest success stories in the world of high fashion in two decades.

Galliano was credited with breathing new life into the Dior brand after taking it over in 1996, revitalising it with edgy flamboyance.

In the ensuing weeks, Galliano was also dropped from his own fashion brand, "John Galliano," 92-per cent owned by Dior, and was castigate by fashion figures like Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld.