The canceled John Galliano exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has opened the media floodgates, with many commentators adding their two cents.
In an op-ed for the New York Times, fashion critic Robin Givhan commented that the “exhibition should not have been canceled. Instead, the Met Gala should have been canceled.” She argued that the work of museums is to face these difficult subjects and that the Galliano exhibition “could help us make sense of other contradictions in character, of how hate hides in shadows.”
Givhan added that “no one has to imagine enslavers and racists being honored” because they are still championed in many places. “Look around. Our public squares are still filled with odes to Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, Robert E. Lee and assorted other hallowed figures who degraded Black people.”
The Galliano exhibition had faced controversy from the start, as many fixated on antisemitic and anti-Asian comments made by the British designer more than a decade ago, along with his 2011 hate crime conviction in France.
Diane von Furstenberg, John Galliano and Anna Wintour attend the 2008 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards.
Penske Media via Getty Images
It’s not only Galliano that’s being finger pointed, however; his longtime friend and Vogue’s global editorial Anna Wintour has been criticized too. In a sparse, two-sentence statement, she said that “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.”
For her part, Wintour has been instrumental in rebuilding Galliano’s career after he was fired from Dior. She landed him a gig with Oscar de la Renta in 2013 and then, in 2014, he was appointed artistic director of Maison Margiela, where his collections were critically acclaimed. Condé Nast Entertainment also co-produced the documentary High & Low – John Galliano by Kevin Macdonald in 2023.
The Daily Telegraph’s head of fashion Lisa Armstrong wrote an op-ed with the headline “Anna Wintour was intent on rescuing Galliano – but the Met exhibition was an awful idea.” She wrote that while many “Jews accepted that Galliano might someday be viewed in a museum,” the timing in the current political climate feels “uneasy.”
In recent years, the Met Gala has faced much criticism. “Did Ms. Wintour expect guests to arrive wearing vintage Galliano? Did she want them to show up dressed like a pirate or one of the other outlandish characters that Mr. Galliano would often portray when he took his bows as the creative director at Dior? Did she want a circus?” Givhan questioned in her op-ed. She contended that this year would have been a “fine year to reconsider its relationship to the so-called party of the year, which has also been a point of protest over the war in Gaza and the growing clout of America’s billionaires. There surely would have been protests against Mr. Galliano, too.”
As legacy media circulations dwindle, Wintour knows her legacy won’t be magazines, and so she has been moving towards the arts. As such, the Met Gala has become Wintour’s Buckingham Palace, where annually she’s the savior of the arts.
In the Times of London, fashion editor Harriet Walker wrote that “it seems that the word of Anna Wintour might no longer be law.” She adds that when she interviewed Macdonald in 2024 about Galliano’s documentary, she asked him why Wintour had decided to come to Galliano’s rescue. The director replied, “It always puzzled me that she decided to expend political capital on John. Other than thinking he’s really talented, what possible reason could she have for risking herself and her company?”
In another opinion piece, also in the Times of London, Aliza Licht said, as a “marketing expert who works in fashion, it wouldn’t surprise me if Wintour engineered it so Galliano would take the heat rather than her. Just look at their public statements.”
But there are still many that want to see the Galliano exhibition go forward. The actor and model Hari Nef wrote in a post on X that she was reminded of the 2012 Met Gala theme and exhibition “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations,” writing, “Perhaps Galliano’s design legacy is difficult to square with his past remarks, but is it really ‘impossible?’ this could have been cool and interesting!! and yes beautiful.”
