The Metropolitan Museum of Art has revealed the theme for the 2027 Met Gala. The Costume Institute’s spring 2027 exhibition will be “John Galliano: Horizons,” a look at the career of one of fashion’s most celebrated and most controversial designers.
It’s only the third time the exhibition has focused on a living designer, after Yves Saint Laurent in 1983 and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons in 2017.
Galliano’s career
- Givenchy: began there in 1995
- Dior: creative director from 1997 to 2011
- Maison Margiela: creative director from 2014 to 2024
A complicated legacy
Galliano, now 65, was one of couture’s biggest visionaries in the ’90s and 2000s. His career collapsed in 2011 after a series of antisemitic and racist outbursts in Paris, including a widely shared video in which he expressed admiration for Hitler. A French court convicted him of making racist and antisemitic insults. At trial, he said he didn’t remember the incidents and blamed an addiction to alcohol and pills, for which he was seeking treatment.
In Kevin Macdonald’s 2024 documentary High & Low — John Galliano, the Gibraltar-born designer called his behavior disgusting and horrific. He said everyone carries some prejudice that they have to unlearn.
The Met won’t avoid the controversy
The museum says the show will look at both how Galliano reshaped fashion and how his conduct and its consequences have changed the way his work is seen. Vogue‘s Anna Wintour, a longtime supporter, said the exhibition will “take in the full arc of his career” and won’t shy away from the darker parts of his past.
Our take
This is a bold and divisive choice. Galliano’s influence on fashion is undeniable, but so is the harm his words caused. How the Met balances celebration with accountability, and how guests interpret the theme on the red carpet, will likely be the main conversation around next May’s gala.
