Next year’s Met Gala theme has been announced, and it’s only the third time the first Monday in May has been dedicated to a living designer. After Yves Saint Laurent and Rei Kawakubo, this time it’s John Galliano’s turn. 2027’s theme, though, ‘John Galliano: Horizons’, is not without controversy.
The Gibraltar-born British designer is known as a designer’s designer. Looks from his collections for Givenchy and then Dior, where he was the creative director from 1996 to 2011, live rent-free in the head of many a fashion nerd. Under his reign, we got the Dior Saddle bag, the J’adore fragrance, and the secret to the perfect bias-cut slip dress. All of that came crashing down in 2011, when he was convicted by a French court for a series of anti-Semitic and racist rants. In the aftermath of his outburst, Galliano was fired from Dior and went to rehab for drug and alcohol abuse. After just a few years under the radar, he was appointed the creative director of Maison Martin Margiela, where he stayed for another decade, quietly rebuilding his reputation.
This announcement of a Met fashion exhibition dedicated to Galliano has been in the works for a while, part of a larger attempt to rehabilitate the designer and championed in large part by museum trustee Anna Wintour. Earlier this year, even fast-fashion giant Zara announced a two-year creative partnership with Galliano.
Ultimately, though, how you feel about his exoneration depends on a lot of things. Your views on cancel culture. Your definition of forgiveness. And whether you believe that art can be separated from artist.
