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Legendary British fashion designer John Galliano and New York’s Metropolitian Museum of Art have decided to call off a planned exhibition set to launch next year’s Met Gala.
The show was meant to celebrate and portray the highlights of the pioneering creator’s career but the plans were immediately deried after they were announced last month because of Galliano’s antiSemitic and racist tirade which forced him into the fashion wilderness.
On Monday, the museum said ‘John Galliano: Horizons’ would be replaced by an as yet unnamed show.
“Following thought discussions with John Galliano, we have together decided not to proceed with the exhibition,” Max Hollein director and CEO of the museum announced in a statement.
Galliano also published the statement on Instagram adding “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.
“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 for it.”
Meltdown in public
Galliano’s meteoric rise was matched by his dramatic fall from grace. He was talk of the town throughout the 1990s and became head design honcho at French luxury fashion house Givenchy thanks to his innovative and bold creations. Within two years, he was promoted by LVHM to run Dior and further success followed as he cemeted his status across luxury goods and pop culture.
But shortly before presenting at the 2011 autumn/winter Paris Fashion Week, he was caught on video hurling a series of racist and antisemitic marks at a couple at a Paris café. At one point, he was recorded saying: “I love Hitler.”
He was fired by Dior and later convicted of public insults based on origin, religious affiliation, race or ethnicity – remarks that the state prosecutor called “pitiful and dreadful”. The court fined him €6,000, rejecting his argument that he was in a fragile emotional state following the death of a close friend.
By 2013, however, his image was already being rehabilitated. Then Vogue editor Anna Wintour helped secure him a temporary residency at Dominican designer Oscar de la Renta’s studio before the autumn 2013 New York Fashion Week. The collaboration earned praise, with critics highlighting Galliano’s signature theatricality in de la Renta’s ready-to-wear collection.
Now 65, Galliano, has apologised often for his outburst, claiming he had suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction. Many Jewish leaders have accepted his contrition as genuine, too.
Video editor • Emma De Ruiter