The Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Costume Institute\u2019s spring 2027 exhibition will be titled \u201cJohn Galliano: Horizons,\u201d recognizing the work of designer John Galliano. This marks only the third time a living designer is the focus of the exhibit: the first was Yves Saint Laurent in 1983 and the second was Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Gar\u00e7ons in 2017.<\/p>\n
Galliano, now 65, started his career at Givenchy in 1995 before he took over as creative director of Dior from 1997 to 2011. From 2014 to 2024, he was the creative director of the Parisian fashion house Maison Margiela.<\/p>\n
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The designer was one the couture fashion industry\u2019s most influential names and visionaries throughout the \u201890s and early \u201800s, before he upended his career in 2011 following a string of antisemitic and racist incidents, including the\u00a0infamous video\u00a0in which he professed his love for Hitler at a restaurant in Paris.<\/p>\n
Following his multiple outbursts, Galliano was convicted of committing two hate crimes<\/a> in Paris and faced a fine equivalent to $8,500.<\/p>\n John Galliano during Dior\u2019s 2008 Cruise show.Credit: M. Von Holden\/WireImage<\/p>\n In the first incident, which resulted in Galliano\u2019s February 2011 arrest, he was accused of verbally assaulting two people, including a man named Philippe Virgitti, at La Perle, a cafe down the street from his Marais apartment. The second case involved an incident in October 2010, at the same bar, where he was accused of insulting a 40-year-old woman.<\/p>\n During the trial, he\u2019d taken the stand in his own defense and testified that he didn\u2019t remember the outburst that was directed at Virgitti due to a triple addiction to sleeping pills, Valium and alcohol.<\/p>\n \u201cI have an addiction. I am currently seeking treatment,\u201d he told the courtroom at the time.<\/p>\n In Kevin Macdonald\u2019s 2024 documentary, High & Low \u2014 John Galliano, which includes footage of the two attacks, Galliano admits: \u201cIt was a disgusting thing, foul thing that I did. It was just horrific.\u201d<\/p>\n Reflecting on the events, the designer, who was born in the British territory Gibraltar, adds, \u201cI can say I\u2019m not racist, but every day you actually learn that all of us are a bit. But we just need to unlearn it and like immigrants. I am one. I was one.\u201d<\/p>\n John Galliano and Charlize Theron at the 2006 Met Gala.Credit: Peter Kramer\/Getty<\/p>\n The Met\u2019s exhibit does not plan on shying away from Galliano\u2019s controversies.<\/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 Curator in Charge of the Costume Institute Andrew Bolton said in a release, per Vogue<\/a>. \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.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/c13a3a6b-27f8-4d25-ac81-5e74b310bf10.jpg\"\/)
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