A month after New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that its major spring 2027 fashion exhibition would be devoted to controversial designer John Galliano, the museum said Monday that the exhibition had been canceled. In recent weeks, opposition had grown to honoring the designer, who was filmed 15 years ago making antisemitic remarks — an incident that led to his dismissal as chief designer at Christian Dior in 2011. After he was dropped by Dior, Galliano spent several years involved in public and private efforts to rehabilitate.
The Met, when it announced the show at the end of July, had taken pains to say the exhibit would forthrightly examine Galliano's past mistakes. It also held discussions with Jewish community leaders before announcing the show, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to ward off anticipated backlash.
On Sunday, New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin criticized the plan to honor Galliano at the Met Gala and said that “our cultural institutions, especially those that receive city funding, have a responsibility to show that hatred and intolerance have consequences.”
In an almost incomprehensible irony, the exhibition’s opening night had been scheduled for May 3, 2027, which is also the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. At first there was consideration of moving the opening night, but in the end the decision was made Monday to cancel the exhibition altogether.
John Galliano with Anna Wintou
(Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty ImagesIL)
“I am profoundly grateful to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and particularly to Max Hollein, Andrew Bolton, and Anna Wintour, for the extraordinary honor of proposing an exhibition devoted to my work," Galliano said Monday. "To have my creative journey considered by an institution that I have admired throughout my life moved me more deeply than I can express. I will remain forever grateful for the confidence, care and scholarship that Max, Andrew, Anna and the entire Met team brought to this project.”
“After much reflection and discussion with The Met and all those involved, I have decided, with great sadness, that it is best for the exhibition not to take place at this time. I remain fully accountable for the pain caused by my words in the past, particularly the hurt I caused to the Jewish and Asian communities, and I remain deeply sorry for it," Galliano said in a statement.
"I understand that meaningful meaningful atonement is not achieved through an exhibition, institutional recognition or a single public gesture. It is a continuing responsibility, demonstrated through listening, learning and one’s conduct over time.”
Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala
(Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
The designer also addressed the damage to the museum itself, which in recent weeks had come under fire for choosing to devote an exhibition to Galliano. “I do not want the debate surrounding me to place The Met in a difficult position or to distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute,” he added. “I also recognize and respect that an exhibition honoring my work would be painful for some."
Max Hollein, director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, said in a statement: “Following thoughtful discussions with John Galliano, we have together decided not to proceed with the exhibition.”
In the statement, Anna Wintour said, “John’s decision to ask the Museum to postpone the exhibition devoted to his work is very courageous and a measure of the man he is. I believe this is the right decision, and both he and the Museum have my full support. His soaring imagination, fed by a lifetime of curiosity and research, is matched by his exceptional craft."
For now, the exhibition has been canceled and no information has been given on when, if ever, it might take place.
John Galliano at the Dior fashion show, 201
(Photo: Karl Prouse/Catwalking/Getty Images)
Galliano’s racist remarks were recorded during a well-known incident at the La Perle café in Paris in 2011. According to testimony published during the trial, he turned to a man of Asian descent and said: “Fucking Asian bastard, I will kill you.” To the man’s partner, who was Jewish, he said: “Dirty Jewish face, you should be dead.”
When news of the Met exhibition was first announced, parts of the Jewish community in New York and across the United States rallied in support of rehabilitating Galliano’s reputation. Even so, in recent weeks opposition grew to an exhibition devoted to his work in the current climate in the United States, particularly in New York, where Jews have recently been attacked.
“The concern was that the exhibition could face significant opposition — not just skepticism, but a sense that it was wrong,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism in North America, told The New York Times about a month ago.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote Monday on X: “With antisemitism at crisis levels, the Met honoring John Galliano at this moment was misguided, and even Galliano ultimately recognized what the Met should have done from the start. This was the wrong move at the wrong moment. Timing matters."