John Galliano shocked New York residents on Monday when he made his fashion comeback at Oscar de la Renta’s New York Fashion Week show dressed in a Chasidic-style outfit.

Having recently made his return to fashion as an intern, the disgraced designer appeared in a long black coat, black hat and with his hair in what appeared to be peyot.

Mr Galliano was fired as creative director of Christian Dior after his 2011 criminal conviction for “public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity”.

The eccentric designer hurled antisemitic insults at museum curator Geraldine Bloch and her friend in Le Perle café in the Marais district of Paris in February 2011.

Mr Galliano was also recorded drunkenly declaring his love for Hitler.

He was fined 6,000 euros and stripped of his Legion of Honour medal.

But the Anti Defamation League National Director Abraham H Foxman sprang to Mr Galliano’s defence, saying: “Anyone familiar with the dress of traditional Orthodox Jews should not mistake what Galliano is wearing. Chasidim do not wear fedora hats, pinstripe pants, blue jackets or an ascot tie.”

“He has spent hours with me and with others in the European Jewish community, including rabbis and Holocaust scholars, in an effort to better understand himself and to learn from his past mistakes.” Mr Foxman added: “He is trying very hard to atone.”

The designer has since ditched the Chasidic look.