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The Met Gala has never exactly been known for playing it safe, but next year’s edition could spark considerably more debate than your typical red-carpet dress.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute will dedicate its spring 2027 exhibition to John Galliano, the wildly influential (and deeply controversial) British designer whose theatrical creations helped define fashion at Christian Dior and Maison Margiela. The John Galliano: Horizons exhibition will kick off with the annual Met Gala next May and make Galliano just the third living designer to receive a solo show at the museum, following Yves Saint Laurent and Rei Kawakubo.
Galliano’s résumé is fashion-history stuff: After studying at Central Saint Martins, he eventually became the first British designer to lead a French haute couture house when he took over Givenchy in 1995, before moving to Dior the following year. His fantastical runway shows and technically ambitious clothes made him one of the era’s most celebrated designers.
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But in 2011, Galliano was captured on video making antisemitic remarks at a Paris bar, including saying, “I love Hitler.” Dior fired him and a French court later found him guilty of making antisemitic remarks. He later went to rehab and worked with Jewish leaders to learn about Judaism, antisemitism and the Holocaust before eventually returning to fashion, leading Maison Margiela from 2014 through 2024.
Unsurprisingly, the Met appears well aware that devoting one of its biggest exhibitions to Galliano could prove contentious. According to The New York Times, Anna Wintour, Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton and Galliano met privately with influential New York rabbis and Jewish leaders in May to discuss the planned exhibition and concerns surrounding it. The meeting was one of several held with Jewish leaders over the past year.
Bolton told the Times that the exhibition won’t ignore Galliano’s history. An opening “orientation gallery” is expected to address what he calls “the rupture” in the designer’s career and Bolton said the museum’s responsibility is to “establish the record honestly, provide context and create the conditions for visitors to make an informed judgment.”
Whether museumgoers agree with that approach remains to be seen. Galliano has unquestionably been welcomed back into fashion’s inner circle: He recently returned to Dior as a front-row guest and Zara announced a two-year collaboration with him in March.
The Galliano exhibition is scheduled to open May 9, 2027, and run through January 9, 2028.