Fashion designer John Galliano, who was fired from his job at Christian Dior two years ago when he was caught on video shouting "I love Hitler" in a Parisian cafe, seems to have staged another provocation.

Galliano was seen leaving the house of a friend in the center of Manhattan wearing the apparel of a hareidi Jew, including a black hat and jacket, high socks over his trousers and long, curly sidelocks that reached his ears. NY media debated whether the act was simply eccentric or an expression of anti-Semitism.

Galliano has a history of provoking scandals. In the incident two years ago, he was recorded shouting at a couple in the cafe: "People like you are supposed to be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, all of you are supposed to be suffocated by gas." He was stripped of his Legion of Honour as a result.