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NEED TO KNOW
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced a new theme for its 2027 Met Gala and The Costume Institute exhibition
- The theme “extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday” will examine how designers give everyday pieces extraordinary possibilities
- In August, the museum had shared it wouldn’t go ahead with its original plans of the theme being “John Galliano: Horizons”
New York’s The Metropolitan Museum of Art has officially moved on from its John Galliano debacle, unveiling a brand-new theme for its 2027 Met Gala and The Costume Institute exhibition on Thursday, November 5.
This year’s theme is “extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday”, with visitors asked: “to see the everyday anew”. The exhibition will feature loans and new acquisitions that examine how craft, construction and material experimentation and give everyday pieces extraordinary possibilities.
“From jeans, T-shirts and puffer coats to paper, plastic and metal, the exhibition will reveal how the seemingly unremarkable can inspire delight, surprise and wonder,” reads a description of the exhibition. “It will also consider how meaning develops through use and care.”
The theme will be explored from two angles: one focusing on the archetypal garments, like jeans and t-shirts, and the other centred on how humble materials like paper, aluminium and plastic can be transformed into wearable art, reports Vogue.
Galliano was originally set to be the centrepiece of the 2027 gala and exhibition, under the theme “Horizons”, with the exhibit set to “examine and exalt” his work throughout his career. In August, Galliano announced the plans wouldn’t be going ahead. The British fashion designer and the museum had received backlash over Galliano’s past racist and antisemitic controversies.
“After much reflection and discussion with all those involved, I have decided, with great sadness, that it is best for the exhibition not to take place at this time,” he had written on Instagram. “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.”
Met Gala and The Costume Institute exhibition will be organised by Curator in Charge, Andrew Bolton, who’s been in the role since 2015. He told Vogue he didn’t have a plan B if the Galliano focus fell through.
“It was really important to come up with an exhibition that wasn’t just a masterwork show or something that we could do a little bit more easily, he said. “I wanted it to be as challenging and as provocative and as beautiful as a John show would have been. That was really important to me: to come up with an idea that wasn’t a substitute. And it had to have some sort of contemporary resonance.”
The Met Gala will take place on Monday, May 3, 2027, while the “extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday” exhibition will run at The Met Fifth Avenue in New York City May 9, 2027 to January 9, 2028.
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