A new theme for the Met Gala
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced Thursday the theme of next year's Costume Institute exhibition, according to NBC News. Titled "extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday," the show will examine how designers transform conventional objects and ordinary clothing into new garments.
In a press release, the museum said the exhibition would range "from jeans, T-shirts, and puffer coats to paper, plastic, and metal." It said the show would reveal how the "seemingly unremarkable can inspire delight, surprise, and wonder."
The Costume Institute curates the exhibition and sets the theme of the Met Gala, an annual fundraiser for the institute. The theme typically shapes the gala's dress code, and the event traditionally takes place on the first Monday in May.
Curator had no backup plan
Andrew Bolton, head curator at the Costume Institute, spoke to The Associated Press this week about the challenge of finding a replacement. "I had no Plan B, to be honest," Bolton said, adding that no other exhibition had already been researched and ready to go.
With limited time, Bolton said he drew on a passing thought from work on the previous Met Gala exhibition, which explored how different types of bodies relate to clothing. That show, he said, led him to think more about how people experience clothing in daily life. "We have a favorite T-shirt, we have a favorite pair of jeans, and we wear them until they literally fall apart," he said.
"Everyday clothes carry extraordinary amounts of meaning," Bolton added. He said he liked the idea that designers turn familiar items into "incredible sources of wonder."
Why the Galliano show was canceled
The original exhibition, honoring British designer John Galliano, was announced in late July. The Costume Institute had already begun collecting Galliano designs for it. Backlash followed over his past anti-Jewish and anti-Asian remarks.
The museum initially said it would not shy away from confronting the designer's "derogatory conduct that fundamentally altered his career and public reception." The exhibition was nonetheless canceled in August. Museum director Max Hollein said at the time that the institution and Galliano decided together not to proceed.
Had the plan stayed in place, the unveiling would have coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day on May 3, 2027, according to NBC News.
Galliano's career and the reaction
Galliano spent years as creative director of Christian Dior and was fired in 2011 over a series of racist and antisemitic comments that went viral online. That year he was also convicted in France of antisemitic abuse after berating a couple at a Paris cafe. He blamed his behavior on substance abuse and testified that he had no recollection of the events. In 2014 he was hired by Maison Margiela, where he stayed for a decade.
Anna Wintour, the longtime Met Gala chair, Vogue's global editorial director and a longtime Galliano supporter, backed the decision to cancel. In an August statement, she called Galliano's choice "very courageous and a measure of the man he is." She added, "I believe this is the right decision, and both he and the Museum have my full support."
