New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, popularly known as the Met, has announced the theme for its Spring 2027 Costume Institute exhibition and the annual Met Gala: controversial British designer John Galliano.
In its announcement on Friday, the Met said the exhibition, titled John Galliano: Horizons, would be the first to “examine the full breadth of his creative output” using “garments, accessories, sketches, toiles, research books, and archival materials” drawing extensively from the Costume Institute’s collection — the largest of its kind in the world.
The exhibition will examine Galliano’s work stretching from his 1984 graduation collection in London through his work with Givenchy and Christian Dior, to his later tenure at Maison Margiela and his critically acclaimed spring/summer 2024 collection.
The show will also look at the darker elements of Galliano’s past, including his struggle with addiction and two incidents of racist and anti-semitic abuse in 2010 and 2011 that landed him in legal trouble and got him fired from Dior.
Marina Kellen French Director and CEO Max Hollein said, “John Galliano has exerted a profound influence on fashion over the past four decades. His work brings historical inquiry, artistic imagination, theatrical expression, and technical experimentation into dynamic relation. Drawing upon the depth of The Costume Institute’s scholarship and the breadth of the Met’s collections, John Galliano: Horizons will offer an expansive examination of his creative practice while attending closely to the historical, cultural and ethical circumstances through which his work is understood.”
