British fashion designer John Galliano's Met Gala exhibition canceled over string of racist and antisemitic comments from the 2010s in which he praised Adolf Hitler and called for all Jews to be gassed. The post Met nixes exhibition planned on Holocaust Remembrance Day for fashion designer who praised Hitler appeared first on World Israel News .
British fashion designer John Galliano’s Met Gala exhibition canceled over string of racist and antisemitic comments from the 2010s in which he praised Adolf Hitler and called for all Jews to be gassed.
By David Rosenberg, World Israel News
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has canceled a planned 2027 exhibition celebrating fashion designer John Galliano following mounting opposition from Jewish leaders, politicians and museum donors over his history of antisemitic and racist remarks.
The New York museum announced Monday that “John Galliano: Horizons,” which had been scheduled as the Costume Institute’s major spring exhibition, has been scrapped.
The show was also set to provide the theme for the 2027 Met Gala, one of the fashion industry’s most prominent annual events.
“Following thoughtful discussions with John Galliano, we have together decided not to proceed with the exhibition,” Met Director and CEO Max Hollein said.
Galliano said he had concluded that proceeding with the retrospective would be inappropriate given the controversy surrounding his past conduct.
“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,” Galliano said.
“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,” he added. Galliano said that “meaningful atonement is not achieved through an exhibition, institutional recognition or a single public gesture,” but instead requires an ongoing commitment to learning and responsible conduct.
The Met had announced the exhibition on July 31, describing Galliano as “one of the most inventive and influential designers of the past four decades.”
The retrospective was to run from May 9, 2027, through January 9, 2028, and examine his career through garments, sketches, accessories, research books and other archival material.
The museum had planned to explore Galliano’s work for his own label as well as his periods at Givenchy, Christian Dior and Maison Margiela. He would have become only the third living designer to receive a solo Costume Institute exhibition, following Yves Saint Laurent in 1983 and Rei Kawakubo in 2017.
But the announcement immediately revived scrutiny of the scandal that ended Galliano’s career at Dior in 2011.
Video recorded during a drunken confrontation at a Paris café showed Galliano declaring, “I love Hitler.” Other incidents involved antisemitic and racist insults directed at patrons.
Dior, where Galliano had served as creative director for roughly 15 years, fired him after the footage became public.
Later that year, a French court found Galliano guilty of public insults based on race, religion or ethnicity in connection with two incidents and imposed a suspended €6,000 fine.
Galliano apologized and attributed his behavior during the period in part to severe alcohol and prescription-drug addiction.
He subsequently entered treatment and undertook a years-long effort to rehabilitate his reputation, including meetings with Jewish leaders.
The Anti-Defamation League said in 2013 that he had demonstrated “true contrition.” Galliano returned to a major fashion position in 2014 when Maison Margiela named him creative director, a role he held until 2024.
Those efforts did not prevent the Met exhibition from provoking growing opposition.
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and the first Jewish speaker of the council, repeatedly pressed the museum to reverse course. She said honoring Galliano during a period of heightened antisemitism amounted to a “gut punch to the Jewish community.”
The controversy was heightened by the planned date of the Met Gala — May 3, 2027. Yom HaShoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, begins at sundown that evening and continues through May 4. Organizers had reportedly considered moving the gala because of the overlap before the entire Galliano exhibition was canceled.
Pressure also came from influential museum supporters. Alice Tisch, a prominent Met donor, reportedly described the exhibition as a “whitewash” in an email to Hollein and wrote, “This exhibit bespeaks a failure of governance.”
Some donors were also reported to have warned that they could withhold contributions if the museum proceeded.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt welcomed the reversal, saying that although the organization had previously accepted Galliano’s apology, the decision to honor him was ill-timed.
“With antisemitism at crisis levels, the Met honoring John Galliano at this moment was misguided,” Greenblatt said. “This was the wrong move at the wrong moment. Timing matters.”
Menin likewise praised the decision.
“This is the correct decision, as the harm and pain this was causing was simply unacceptable,” she said.
Anna Wintour, the longtime force behind the Met Gala and a Met trustee who has supported Galliano through his rehabilitation, backed the cancellation but praised the designer for agreeing to withdraw.
“John’s decision that the exhibition devoted to his work should not take place at this time is very courageous and a measure of the man he is,” Wintour said. “I believe this is the right decision, and both he and the Museum have my full support.”
The Met said it will announce a replacement spring Costume Institute exhibition and new plans for the 2027 Met Gala at a later date.
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