Dawn Images

A month after New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art — the Met — announced the theme of its annual Costume Institute Exhibition and Met Gala would be controversial British designer John Galliano, the designer has decided “that it is best for the exhibition not to take place at this time”.

Galliano, who was found guilty of anti-Asian and anti-semitic abuse by a French court in 2011, said he was thankful to the institution for honouring him with the dedication, but that he wouldn’t want the controversy surrounding him to “place the Met in a difficult position”.

“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.”

The designer said he understood he couldn’t atone for his actions meaningfully “through an exhibition, institutional recognition or a single public gesture”. He said it was a “continuing responsibility demonstrated through listening, learning and one’s conduct over time”.

Galliano thanked the Met’s CEO Max Hollein, the exhibition’s curator in-charge Andrew Bolton and Met trustee Anna Wintour for “their generosity, humanity and belief in the importance of fashion as art, culture and history”.

Hollein said Galliano and the team at the Met “have together decided not to proceed with the exhibition”.

Bolton said he believed “deeply in the responsibility of museums to examine difficult histories with rigour, candour and care”, but he also recognised “the pain and concern this exhibition has caused”. The curator said he supported the decision to call the exhibition off.

Wintour expressed her support for Galliano, saying, “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.”

The exhibition, titled John Galliano: Horizons, was set to run at the Met’s campus on New York’s Fifth Avenue from May 9, 2027.

It chronicled the designer’s four-decade career in fashion from his 1984 graduation collection in London through his work with Givenchy and Christian Dior, to his later tenure at Maison Margiela and his critically acclaimed spring/summer 2024 collection.

It also explored Galliano’s struggles with addiction and his racist and anti-semitic outbursts in 2010 and 2011.

Cover photo: AFP