John Galliano at the end of his autumn-winter 2010-2011 show for Dior in Paris. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters View image in fullscreen John Galliano at the end of his autumn-winter 2010-2011 show for Dior in Paris. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters John Galliano Designer John Galliano to get unvarnished Met retrospective in May Decision to stage solo exhibition comes 15 years after conviction over racist and antisemitic remarks
Prefer the Guardian on Google The controversial designer John Galliano is to get an unvarnished retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York next May.
Galliano, who is widely considered to be one of the most influential designers of the past four decades, was exiled from the industry in 2011 after he was filmed making a series of racist and antisemitic comments. He was fired from his position as creative director of Dior, a post he had held for 15 years, condemned by the media and later convicted and fined by a French court.
At the time it was questioned whether the British designer would ever be able to redeem himself in the fashion industry.
The decision by the Met to spotlight Galliano with his own fashion blockbuster, which will be only the third time it has given a living designer a solo exhibition, suggests that perhaps, he has reached the pinnacle of his rehabilitation. The exhibition will be kicked off by the annual Met Gala red carpet extravaganza, making it one of the biggest events on the fashion calendar.
“The fashion business has a short memory,” said Dana Thomas, the author of Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. “It is also remarkably forgiving of bad behaviours.”
Olya Kuryshchuk, the founder and editor in chief of the platform 1 Granary , described it as “refreshing” to see the celebration of a living artist rather than a typical thematic exhibition.
“Few designers have left a mark on fashion as profound as John Galliano,” she said. “He fundamentally changed the way fashion communicates emotion, fantasy and storytelling and influenced generations of designers.”
Thomas describes Galliano as having “worked hard to earn the industry’s forgiveness”. A documentary in 2024 by Kevin Macdonald delved into this redemption as the designer recalled how he spent time in rehabilitation for alcohol addiction and met prominent Jewish leaders to seek forgiveness. Within three years of his outburst, Galliano was appointed the creative director of Maison Margiela, a post he held for a decade and where he was widely lauded.
View image in fullscreen A model presents a creation John Galliano for Maison Margiela in 2015 in Paris. Photograph: François Guillot/AFP/Getty Images Since then his reintegration into the fashion industry has stepped up even further. In January, he sat front row at Jonathan Anderson’s debut show for Dior. In March, it was announced Galliano was embarking on a “two-year creative partnership” with Zara on a series of collections, the first of which hits stores in September.
According to the New York Times, the Met has held several meetings with Jewish leaders over the past year to discuss the event. In May, the Costume Institute’s head curator, Andrew Bolton, Vogue’s global editorial director and Met trustee, Anna Wintour, along with Galliano, attended a closed-door meeting met “a handful of the most influential rabbis and Jewish leaders in New York City”.
According to a press release, the exhibition, which is…