The Metropolitan Museum of Art will mount a solo retrospective of John Galliano — the British designer whose career collapsed in 2011 after he was filmed making racist and antisemitic comments — opening at The Met Fifth Avenue on 9 May 2027 and running through 9 January 2028 (The Met).

Titled "John Galliano: Horizons," the exhibition will be only the third time the Costume Institute has given a living designer a solo show (The Guardian). The annual Met Gala, the museum's fundraising red-carpet event, will kick it off on the opening night.

Galliano was fired from his post as creative director of Christian Dior, the French luxury house owned by LVMH, after the 2011 incident. A French court convicted and fined him the same year for the racist and antisemitic remarks. Within three years, he was appointed creative director of Maison Margiela, a post he held for a decade.

According to a press release, the exhibition is split into three parts and "will address the derogatory conduct that fundamentally altered his career and public reception" (The Guardian). The Met did not frame the show as a simple celebration.

Behind the scenes, the museum took the unusual step of consulting Jewish leaders before proceeding. According to the New York Times, the Met held several meetings with Jewish leaders over the past year. In May, Costume Institute head curator Andrew Bolton, Vogue global editorial director and Met trustee Anna Wintour, and Galliano himself attended a closed-door meeting with influential rabbis and Jewish leaders in New York City (The Guardian).

Galliano's public rehabilitation has been visible on multiple fronts. In January, he sat front row at Jonathan Anderson's debut show for Dior — the house that had dismissed him fifteen years earlier. In March, it was announced that Galliano was embarking on a two-year creative partnership with Zara, the fast-fashion chain owned by Inditex, on a series of collections (The Guardian).

The announcement has drawn divided reactions. Author Dana Thomas described the fashion business as having "a short memory" and being "remarkably forgiving of bad behaviours" (The Guardian). Olya Kuryshchuk, founder and editor in chief of 1 Granary, a fashion publication, called it "refreshing" to see the celebration of a living artist rather than a typical thematic exhibition.

For a designer whose fall was one of the most public downfalls the industry has seen, the Met's decision to look at the whole career — the work and the rupture — places the judgment in front of a very large audience. The show runs for eight months.