The Met Announces New 2027 Costume Institute Exhibition Following John Galliano Cancellation

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced a new direction for its spring 2027 Costume Institute exhibition and accompanying Met Gala, following the cancellation of a highly anticipated retrospective dedicated to British fashion designer John Galliano. Titled extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday, the exhibition will explore how familiar garments and commonplace materials can be transformed into extraordinary expressions of fashion and creativity.

Organized by Costume Institute Curator in Charge Andrew Bolton, with assistance from Stephanie Kramer and Emily Mushaben, the exhibition will invite visitors to reconsider the beauty and significance of the clothes and materials that surround them. Rather than focusing on a single designer, extraORDINARY will examine how fashion elevates the ordinary, challenging audiences to look beyond the familiar and, as the museum puts it, “see the everyday anew.”

The exhibition will approach its subject from two distinct perspectives. The first will explore how designers have reimagined archetypal garments, including everyday staples such as T-shirts and jeans, transforming wardrobe essentials into statements of artistic expression. The second will examine the creative possibilities of humble, sometimes disposable materials, including paper, aluminum and plastic, and how designers have transformed them into remarkable examples of wearable art.

The newly announced exhibition replaces John Galliano: Horizons, a major retrospective that was originally announced on July 31, 2026. The exhibition was intended to trace Galliano’s influential career through garments, accessories, sketches, toiles, research books and archival materials, beginning with his celebrated 1984 Central Saint Martins graduate collection, Les Incroyables, and continuing through his tenures at Givenchy, Dior and Maison Margiela, where he staged his final blockbuster couture show.

The Galliano exhibition would have marked only the third retrospective devoted to a living designer in the Costume Institute’s history, following Yves Saint Laurent in 1983 and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons in 2017. However, the project was cancelled on August 31, 2026, following backlash surrounding the designer’s history of antisemitic and racist remarks.

In a statement published by Vogue, Galliano addressed the decision to withdraw from the exhibition.

“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,” he said.

Galliano also acknowledged the lasting impact of his past behaviour, stating: “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.”

He added that meaningful atonement could not be achieved through an exhibition or institutional recognition, but instead required an ongoing commitment to listening, learning and personal accountability.

For Bolton, the unexpected cancellation presented a significant curatorial challenge, particularly given the scale and ambition of the original exhibition. Speaking to Vogue, he admitted that there had been no alternative exhibition waiting in the wings.

“I didn’t have a plan B,” Bolton said. “It was really important to come up with an exhibition that wasn’t just a masterwork show or something that we could do a little bit more easily. I wanted it to be as challenging and as provocative and as beautiful as a John show would have been.”

He continued: “That was really important to me: to come up with an idea that wasn’t a substitute. And it had to have some sort of contemporary resonance.”

With extraORDINARY, Bolton has found that contemporary relevance in fashion’s ability to transform the familiar into something unexpected. By shifting the focus from the legacy of one designer to the creative potential of everyday clothing and unconventional materials, the Costume Institute is offering a broader exploration of how fashion can challenge perceptions of beauty, value and artistic expression.

The exhibition will be the focus of the annual Met Gala on Monday, May 3, 2027, before opening to the public on May 9. extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday will remain on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City through January 9, 2028.