Met Gala organizers are set to take a big leap in honoring controversial fashion designer John Galliano at the 2027 benefit.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Vogue announced on Friday that Galliano will be honored at next year’s “John Galliano: Horizon” exhibit, despite the former Dior designer remaining a polarizing figure following his 2011 antisemitic remarks.
According to the New York Times, Met trustee and Vogue’s global editorial director Anna Wintour has met New York City’s “influential rabbis and Jewish leaders” in a bid to “get their thoughts on the potential issues with next year’s planned fashion extravaganza.”
Galliano and Andrew Bolton, the Met’s Costume Institute curator, have also reportedly been active in the meetings to try and receive the leaders’ “blessing,” the outlet reported Saturday.
The businessman had been working as a designer for Dior in 2011 when he was convicted of a hate crime for berating patrons at a Paris bar with antisemitic insults, and proclaiming “I love Hitler” while drunk.
He was also ordered to pay court fees and a fine and was fired from the fashion house due to the incident.
Galliano, now 65, later apologized, claiming that he didn’t recall the incident and had suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction.
He took a hiatus from the fashion world and sought rehab before returning in 2014 for a role as Maison Margiela’s creative designer.
Jewish leaders who have met with Wintour, Bolton and Galliano, including Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the Union for Reform Judaism in North America president, have acknowledged that Galliano deserves a second chance.
Jacobs told the Times that he felt Galliano’s “sincerity,” saying, “He was open. He looked right at us and spoke in a clear way, not as if he had memorized talking points.
“The fear clearly was the show could be met with a lot of resistance — not just skepticism, but a feeling of it’s wrong,” he continued.
Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Times that he believes Galliano “has genuinely worked through the issues that led to his antisemitic outburst years ago in Paris.”
“We have long since accepted his apology,” Greenblatt added. “His efforts to repair the damage his words caused and to learn from that incident should be applauded.”
Rabbi Joshua Davidson, the leader of Temple Emanu-El, which is near the Met, urged that the exhibit also address the consequences of Galliano’s past behavior.
“What we had said to them is it would be powerful, poignant and productive if they were able to leverage it as an opportunity to teach about the reality of antisemitism, and somehow wrap into the exhibition the importance of fighting back and the dangers of antisemitism in this moment,” Davidson told the newspaper.
Additionally, Davidson foresees some members of the Jewish community would find the exhibition “problematic,” stating, “People may very likely be upset by it. I can understand those feelings.”
Bolton, who has been thinking about honoring Galliano since 2010, agreed that organizers needed to find a way to “hold artistic achievement and ethical accountability together without allowing one to erase the other.”
Wintour, meanwhile, told the Times via text that Galliano’s “career isn’t defined by a single moment,” stating “there is no one more deserving of an exhibition of this scale.”
However, members of the community are less forgiving, with several taking to X (formerly Twitter) to share their thoughts.
“It is just astonishing that at a time of rising antisemitism in New York, Anna Wintour has decided that *now* is the time to honor John Galliano,” one person wrote, referring to the recent hate crimes in the Big Apple.
“John Galliano was a polarizing choice for sure,” another added, as a third chimed in, “No. Just no.”
Galliano was a part of turning Dior from haute couture into the luxury fashion house it is today, and was the designer behind the celebrity-beloved Dior Saddle Bag.
Celebrities including Zendaya, Kim Kardashian, Amal Clooney and Tyla, often wear his vintage designs for red carpet events.
Galliano’s forthcoming exhibition would make him the third living designer — following Yves Saint Laurent and Rei Kawakubo — to be honored with a solo exhibition at the Met.
The next Met Gala 2027 will occur next May with Galliano’s exhibit being available for the public to view from May 9, 2027, to Jan. 9, 2028.
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