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Met honors Galliano
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that its spring 2027 Costume Institute exhibition will be dedicated to John Galliano, titled John Galliano: Horizons, and it will be visitable from 9 May 2027 to 9 January 2028 in the Met Fifth Avenue spaces.
“Visitabile dal 9 maggio 2027 al 9 gennaio 2028 negli spazi del Met Fifth Avenue”
The show will be the first “grande esposizione museale” to trace the entire creative path of the British designer, who is described as ex direttore creativo di Givenchy, Dior e Maison Margiela, and it will be curated by Andrew Bolton, responsabile del Costume Institute.
Panorama frames the announcement as a return after years of “esilio dalla moda,” recalling that in 2013 Galliano gave his first television interview after a scandal that had led to his dismissal from Christian Dior two years earlier.
Panorama also places the exhibition alongside the next Met Gala, saying it will accompany the Met Gala and transform what had been treated as a “nome quasi impronunciabile” into a central focus of the event.
RTE.ie adds that the exhibition will be kicked off by the annual Met Gala on 3 May, where A-list attendees are expected to pay homage to Galliano’s work.
Ethics and controversy
Artribune says the Met will also confront “il capitolo più controverso” by analyzing the impact of antisemitic, razziste e anti-asiatiche dichiarazioni pronounced by Galliano between 2010 e il 2011, episodes that led to his licenziamento da Christian Dior and dal suo marchio and to a condanna da parte della giustizia francese.
In a direct statement carried by Panorama, Galliano had said in 2013, “Sono ancora capace di creare. Sono pronto a creare e spero che, attraverso il mio percorso di espiazione, mi venga concessa una seconda possibilità”.
RTE.ie describes the exhibition as examining the fallout from Galliano’s antisemitic tirade and says it “will address the derogatory conduct that fundamentally altered his career and public reception”.
Deadline reports that Anna Wintour, Vogue’s global editorial director, and other Gala organizers met with “influential rabbis and Jewish leaders” in New York City over the past year to discuss “the potential issues” with a show dedicated to Galliano’s work.
Deadline also quotes Rabbi Rick Jacobs saying, “The fear clearly was the show could be met with a lot of resistance — not just skepticism, but a feeling of it’s wrong,” while Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League said, “We believe John Galliano has genuinely worked through the issues”.
Three-part structure
The Met’s exhibition is organized into three sections, with Artribune describing Bearings as a chronological reconstruction of Galliano’s career that “affronterà apertamente anche la frattura” from the 2010-2011 events.
“L’allestimento sarà articolato in tre sezioni”
Artribune says Horizons will explore ricorrenti fonti d’ispirazione, from storia all’arte, dalla geografia alla performance, and it adds that Atlas of Transformation will guide visitors through the creative process via quaderni di ricerca, bozzetti, tele di prova, fitting e capi finiti.
RTE.ie similarly says the institute will organize the show into three “movements”: “Bearings,” “Horizons,” and “Atlas of Transformation,” and it quotes the institute’s aim to reveal how Galliano “transforms these encounters into imaginative garments”.
ELLE notes that the exhibition runs from May 9, 2027 through January 9, 2028 and says it will conclude with pieces from Galliano’s spring/summer 2024 artisanal show for Maison Margiela.
In the same framing, ELLE quotes Andrew Bolton on how the exhibition will consider both how Galliano has remapped the world through fashion and how his conduct, its consequences, and changing cultural values have reshaped understanding of his work.
