Plans for the 2027 Met Gala are underway, with fashion’s biggest night set to return on 3 May next year. As always, the evening will celebrate the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s spring exhibition, which was due to explore the work of John Galliano. “John Galliano: Horizons” was announced as the theme on 31 July, and would have been only the third instance of the Costume Institute celebrating the legacy of a living designer. But on 31 August, it was confirmed that the exhibition would not proceed as originally planned. A new spring exhibition and Met Gala theme will be announced in due course.
Though Galliano is undeniably among the most influential figures in fashion, news of the planned exhibition saw concerns raised about venerating a man who was arrested and subsequently fired from his creative director role at Dior in 2011, for making antisemitic remarks at a Paris bar. Anna Wintour, chief content officer of Condé Nast and global editorial director of , had previously said the exhibition would not “shy away from any of the darkness in John’s past”, adding that the show would “take in the full arc of his career and grapple with all of it”.
When is the Met Gala 2027?
The Met Gala, which provides the Costume Institute with its primary source of funding for all activities, is set to take place on 3 May. It will serve as the official opening for the spring exhibition, which is expected to be on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 9 May 2027 until 9 January 2028.
What is the Met Gala 2027 theme?
The Costume Institute’s spring 2027 exhibition was due to take John Galliano as its subject, making him only the third living designer to be honoured with a retrospective at the Met – the first was Yves Saint Laurent in 1983; the second was Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons in 2017. “John Galliano: Horizons”, organised by curator in charge of the Costume Institute Andrew Bolton, would have spanned his years as Central Saint Martins’s ; his formative appointment at Givenchy; his phenomenal success and, later, dramatic downfall at Christian Dior after making antisemitic remarks at a Paris bar; and, finally, his reinvention of Maison Margiela. The show was due to draw extensively on the garments, accessories, sketches, toiles, research books and archival material from the Costume Institute’s world-beating collection of the designer’s work.
On 31 August, Galliano said in a statement that he had decided, “with great sadness”, that the exhibition should not go ahead at this time. “I am profoundly grateful to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and particularly to Max Hollein, Andrew Bolton and Anna Wintour, for the extraordinary honour of proposing an exhibition devoted to my work. To have my creative journey considered by an institution that I have admired throughout my life moved me more deeply than I can express. I will remain forever grateful for the confidence, care and scholarship that Max, Andrew, Anna and the entire Met team brought to this project.”
He continued: “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. I understand that meaningful atonement is not achieved through an exhibition, institutional recognition or a single public gesture. It is a continuing responsibility, demonstrated through listening, learning and one’s conduct over time.”
Max Hollein, director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said: “Following thoughtful discussions with many stakeholders and with John Galliano, we together have decided not to proceed with the exhibition.”
In the statement, Anna Wintour said, “John’s decision to ask the Museum to postpone the exhibition devoted to his work is very courageous and a measure of the man he is. I believe this is the right decision, and both he and the Museum have my full support. His soaring imagination, fed by a lifetime of curiosity and research, is matched by his exceptional craft. Cut, fit, the evocative line of a bias-cut dress, colour – he’s a master of it all. Without one or the other, if his technique wasn’t equal to his storytelling talents, he wouldn’t be the premiere couturier of his generation. But he most certainly is. From the staged-on-a-shoestring feat that was his Fall 1994 show at the Sao Schlumberger Hotel Particulier in Paris to his tour de force swansong at Maison Margiela Artisanal for Spring 2024, Galliano gave fashion its most marvellous shows. The way that Christian Dior called Cristobal Balenciaga ‘the master of us all’, a generation of designers have looked to Galliano as the greatest. His impact reverberates across generations, not least of all with Dior’s current creative director Jonathan Anderson, who calls Galliano one of his heroes.”
When was the Met Gala 2026?
The 2026 Met Gala took place on 4 May, co-chaired by Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour.
Read more: Met Gala 2026 Red Carpet
What was the 2026 Met exhibition’s theme?
, the spring 2026 exhibition at the Costume Institute, addressed “the centrality of the dressed body in the museum’s vast collection”, per curator Andrew Bolton, by pairing paintings, sculptures and other objects spanning the 5,000 years of art represented in the Met, alongside historical and contemporary garments from the Costume Institute. Bolton organised the exhibition around a series of thematic body types loosely divided into three categories. These included bodies omnipresent in art, like the classical body and the nude body; other kinds of bodies that are more often overlooked, like ageing bodies and pregnant bodies; and still more that are universal, like the anatomical body.
“What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body,” Bolton said. “It’s the common thread throughout the whole museum, which is really what the initial idea for the exhibition was, this epiphany: I know that we’ve often been seen as the stepchild, but, in fact, the dressed body is front and centre in every gallery you come across. Even the nude is never naked,” he continued. “It’s always inscribed with cultural values and ideas.” The exhibition also marked the inauguration of the nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M Nast Galleries, adjacent to The Met’s Great Hall.
Princess Diana wearing Dior at the 1996 Met Gala.
New York Daily News/Getty ImagesWhat was the dress code for the Met Gala 2026?
The dress code – “Fashion is Art” – allowed for a healthy degree of interpretation. While the objectivity of that statement can certainly be debated, the theme made perfect sense in the given context – after all, the exhibition places garments in dialogue with a range of artworks spanning 5,000 years of art history from the Met’s collection; on the evening of 4 May, the veritable feast of outfits – from Adwoa Aboah’s sculpted, embellished Simone Rocha column gown to Beyoncé’s resplendent crystal skeleton dress designed by Olivier Rousteing and Kim Kardashian’s buffed breastplate by pop artist Allen Jones – powerfully reinforced the theme’s claim.
Who were the co-chairs of the Met Gala 2026?
Among the co-chairs of the fête were major forces from the worlds of entertainment, sport, and, of course, fashion: namely, Beyoncé – who last walked the Met’s steps in 2016, when she attended the “Manus x Machina” gala in Givenchy Haute Couture – Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour. Meanwhile, Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz co-chaired the 2026 Met Gala Host Committee, with additional members including Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Gwendoline Christie, Alex Consani, Misty Copeland, Elizabeth Debicki, Lena Dunham, Paloma Elsesser, Lisa, Chloe Malle, Sam Smith, Teyana Taylor, Lauren Wasser, Anna Weyant, A’ja Wilson and Yseult. Read more on the co-chairs, here.
How can I re-watch the Met Gala?
The 2026 Met Gala livestream was hosted exclusively by and broadcast live across its digital platforms, as well as on YouTube and TikTok. Revisit this page, where you can rewatch the full livestream from the evening. Watch hosts Ashley Graham, La La Anthony and Cara Delevingne talk viewers through all the fun and fashion at the 2026 Met Gala, with Emma Chamberlain reprising her role as official red-carpet correspondent.
What is the Met Gala?
Organised and presided over by Anna Wintour since 1995, the Met Gala has become a much-loved annual celebration of fashion. A fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, it has traditionally been timed to mark the opening of its annual fashion exhibition. Year after year, the event raises eight-figure sums.
What happens at the Met Gala?
In short: it’s a secret. For this reason, guests must abide by the no phone (and, therefore, no social media) policy. However, the rules were famously broken by a cluster of celebrities smoking and taking selfies in the bathroom in 2017. The event usually involves a high-profile performer (from Madonna and Rihanna to Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo), and guests always explore the exhibition before sitting down together for dinner.
How many people attend the Met Gala?
The event usually hosts around 600 attendees, although a smaller number attended the 2021 Met Gala, with guests following Covid-19 rules.
Who decides the Met Gala seating plan?
With such high-profile stars in attendance, it goes without saying that plenty of thought goes into the seating plan – with event organiser Eaddy Kiernan and her team responsible for deciding who sits where. “We start with a seating document when the names come together in December,” Kiernan told . “The actual seating chart doesn’t come together until about a month before the event, when we get a sense for the layout of the room, and the flow of the evening.”
Who is invited to the Met Gala?
The 2026 guest list included everyone from Kim Kardashian and Heidi Klum to Hunter Schafer and Kylie Jenner, Beyoncé and Blue Ivy Carter to Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams, with the latter three making their debuts at the event this year. As always, designers attended with muses, like Madonna and Jean Paul Gaultier in 2018; Lady Gaga and Brandon Maxwell in 2019; Kate Moss and Kim Jones in 2023.
What are some of the best looks of all time?
Over the years, the Met Gala has delivered viral looks that are still being discussed today. Rihanna’s dramatic Guo Pei couture cape and gown in 2015 springs to mind here. What about Lady Gaga’s 16-minute entrance while wearing transformative Brandon Maxwell in 2019? Divine. Other memorable moments? Zendaya in her Joan of Arc-inspired Versace look from 2018 and Kim Kardashian in her archival Jean Louis dress (the very same gown worn by Marilyn Monroe back in 1962, when she sang “Happy Birthday, Mr President” to JFK) in 2022. Some of the best-dressed stars in 2026 included Hailey Bieber in Saint Laurent, Teyana Taylor in Tom Ford by Haider Ackermann, and Paloma Elsesser in Francesco Risso’s Bureau of Imagination Project.