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<\/p>\nAnnounced today, \u201cJohn Galliano: Horizons,\u201d the spring 2027 exhibition at the Costume Institute, will examine and exalt the work of John Galliano. In the history of The Met, only two other living designers have been the subject of monographs. The first was Yves Saint Laurent in 1983, organized by Diana Vreeland; the second was Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Gar\u00e7ons in 2017.<\/p>\n
Galliano has been widely considered one of fashion\u2019s greats since his 1984 Central Saint Martins graduation collection Les Incroyables. An exuberant pastiche of turn-of-the-18th century historical dress with his own New Romantic leanings, it was snapped up in its entirety by the British department store Browns. \u201cHorizons,\u201d which was organized by Curator in Charge of the Costume Institute Andrew Bolton, draws extensively from its own considerable holdings, including pieces from that breakout show. The other garments, accessories, sketches, toiles, research books, and archival materials in the exhibition span his years as a scrappy London upstart and enfant terrible, when he divined sartorial magic from the merest scraps; his formative appointment at Givenchy; his phenomenal success and, later, dramatic downfall at Christian Dior; and his genius reinvention of Maison Margiela, in which, as his successor Glenn Martens has said, \u201che really turned a designer\u2019s brand into a house,\u201d and, with his final, triumphant Artisanal collection for the label, a viral phenomenon.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery Galliano collection begins as a journey among things separated by time, place, or medium: portrait and posture, silhouette and story, memory and material,\u201d Bolton said in a release. \u201c\u2018Horizons\u2019 approaches fashion as a form of cartography, mapping not territories but affinities, tensions, and transformations. It traces how images become ideas, ideas become material, and material becomes emotion. Yet a horizon reveals not only what lies before us,\u201d Bolton went on, \u201cbut also where we stand. The exhibition therefore considers both how Galliano has remapped the world through fashion and how his conduct, its consequences, and changing cultural values have reshaped our understanding of his work.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Indeed, despite his creative genius, it wasn\u2019t always assured that Galliano would get the Costume Institute treatment. In 2011, he was arrested and subsequently fired from his creative director role at Christian Dior for making antisemitic remarks at a Paris bar. Cast into creative exile, he spent time in rehabilitation, subsequently reemerging at Maison Margiela, where he rebuilt his reputation, collection by collection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no one more deserving of an exhibition of this scale than John Galliano,\u201d said Anna Wintour, Chief Content Officer, Cond\u00e9 Nast, Global Editorial Director, Vogue. \u201cHis body of work\u2014at Dior, Givenchy, Margiela, his namesake label and more\u2014combines erudition and creativity, darkness and light, the past, the present, the future all smashing together in a brilliant way.\u201d Wintour went on: \u201cHe\u2019s a great designer and his career isn\u2019t defined by a moment\u2014something that he will live with for the rest of his life. The exhibition won\u2019t shy away from any of the darkness in John\u2019s past. It\u2019s part of what has shaped him. The show will take in the full arc of his career and grapple with all of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n
The exhibition will crown Galliano\u2019s very big year. In January, at an auction of \u201cDior Masterpieces\u201d owned by Mouna Al Ayoub that broke records for a couture sale, a painted silk evening gown from Galliano\u2019s \u201cClochards\u201d or \u201cHomeless\u201d collection of Spring\/Summer 2000 went for \u20ac510,000, closely followed by a black taffeta evening gown from the same season that went for \u20ac420,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohn Galliano has exerted a profound influence on fashion over the past four decades,\u201d said Max Hollein, The Met\u2019s Marina Kellen French Director and CEO. But perhaps that influence is just beginning: In September, the master couturier will take his turn as the \u201cpeople\u2019s designer.\u201d That\u2019s when the first release from his two-year project with the Spanish mass retailer Zara, which he\u2019s dubbed as a \u201creauthoring\u201d of the mega brand\u2019s archives, will hit stores.<\/p>\n