The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute will mount a sweeping exhibition devoted to the work of John Galliano, the museum announced on Wednesday. Titled “John Galliano: Horizons,” the show is scheduled to open in spring 2027, making Galliano only the third living designer to be honored with a solo exhibition at the institute.
Previous living subjects were Yves Saint Laurent in 1983, organized by Diana Vreeland, and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons in 2017. Galliano, who emerged in the 1980s with his Central Saint Martins graduation collection “Les Incroyables,” has long been regarded as one of fashion’s most inventive and provocative talents.
“Horizons” is organized by Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator in charge. The exhibition will draw on the museum’s extensive holdings, including pieces from that early groundbreaking collection. It will trace Galliano’s career from his scrappy London beginnings to his appointments at Givenchy and Christian Dior, his dramatic fall from grace, and his celebrated reinvention at Maison Margiela.
In a statement, Bolton explained the curatorial ethos. “Every Galliano collection begins as a journey among things separated by time, place, or medium: portrait and posture, silhouette and story, memory and material,” he said. “Horizons approaches fashion as a form of cartography, mapping not territories but affinities, tensions, and transformations.” He added, “A horizon reveals not only what lies before us, but also where we stand.”
The exhibition will not avoid the darker chapters of Galliano’s biography. In 2011, he was arrested and fired from Dior for making antisemitic remarks. Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of Vogue and chief content officer at Condé Nast, addressed this directly. “The exhibition won’t shy away from any of the darkness in John’s past,” she said. “It’s part of what has shaped him.”
Wintour praised Galliano’s resurgence, noting that his career is not defined by a single moment. The show comes during a year of heightened attention for the designer. In January, record-breaking auction prices were paid for two of his gowns from the “Clochards” collection. And in September, the first pieces from his two-year collaboration with the Spanish retailer Zara are scheduled to hit stores.
Max Hollein, director and CEO of the Met, said Galliano has exerted a profound influence on fashion over the past four decades. “But perhaps that influence is just beginning,” he added.