{"id":610375,"date":"2026-08-31T17:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T17:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/610375\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T17:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T17:46:11","slug":"met-gala-exhibit-honouring-john-galliano-cancelled-amid-backlash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/610375\/","title":{"rendered":"Met Gala exhibit honouring John Galliano cancelled amid backlash"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Galliano has pulled out of the 2027 Met Gala, and the career-spanning exhibition<\/a> that the high-profile event would kickstart next May, amid mounting backlash over his past racist and antisemitic comments.<\/p>\n

Organised by Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge of the Costume Institute in New York City, John Galliano: Horizons was due to open on 3 May and celebrate Galliano’s work and influence on the fashion industry across four decades.<\/p>\n

Galliano would have been only the third living designer to receive the honour, following Yves Saint Laurent in 1983 and Rei Kawakubo in 2017.<\/p>\n

\"NEW
\nJohn Galliano and Kim Kardashian attend The 2024 Met Gala Celebrating “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 06, 2024<\/p>\n

However, the controversial designer announced today that he would not take part in the exhibition, sharing in a statement on his Instagram that, “After much reflection and discussion with all those involved, I have decided, with great sadness, that it is best for the exhibition not to take place at this time”.<\/p>\n

In an article on Vogue, it was reported that the exhibition “will not proceed as planned”, but it is unknown what that currently means for next year’s Met Gala.<\/p>\n

The decision comes after weeks of backlash from members of the Jewish community, who criticised the Met’s decision to go ahead with the exhibition in light of Galliano’s past comments, for which he was convicted in France.<\/p>\n

Organisers and Met trustees, including Vogue’s global editorial director Anna Wintour, were reported to have been debating a date change in recent days, “mulling” whether to reschedule the fundraiser from the previously announced 3 May date to a week after, to avoid coinciding with the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, the New York Times reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The paper also reported that “donors have contacted Met executives and threatened to rescind gifts to the museum if the exhibition moves forward as planned”.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nZendaya wearing a Galliano design at the 2024 Met Gala<\/p>\n

“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. I also recognize [sic] and respect that the exhibition honouring [sic] my work would be painful for some,” Galliano added in his statement.<\/p>\n

Galliano’s celebrated career as the Creative Director at Dior ended after he was filmed making antisemitic and racist remarks outside a Paris caf\u00e9 in 2011, the second such incident. He received a hate-crime conviction<\/a> from a French court and was dismissed from Dior.<\/p>\n

Galliano received a suspended fine of \u20ac6,000 and was ordered to pay damages and court fees, then retreated from public life for approximately two years. In that time, he has said in interviews and in a recent documentary, he consulted with Jewish leaders, rabbis and groups like the Anti-Defamation League to make amends for his crime.<\/p>\n

Organisers had planned to examine the fallout from Galliano’s antisemitic tirade, stating in press announcements that it would “address the derogatory conduct that fundamentally altered his career and public reception”. “In doing so, the exhibition will consider how artistic achievement should be understood alongside ethical accountability.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Galliano has pulled out of the 2027 Met Gala, and the career-spanning exhibition that the high-profile event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-610375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}