Kevin Mazur/MG26/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images The Met Gala has a brand new theme. After the Metropolitan Museum of Art initially announced that the 2027 event would be held in honor of John Galliano , a deluge of opposition driven by Galliano’s past controveries forced lead to the designer volunteerily stepping aside. As a result, the Met was forced to returned to the drawing board and has now announced a new (and decidedly less controversial) theme, sure to please museum donors and fashion fans alike. The 2027 Met Gala will honor the extraordinary within the ordinary and the beauty in the conventional. Here’s everything you need to know.
The Met Gala theme next year will be “extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday,” with a focus on commonplace garments and everyday materials transformed by designers.
Kate Moss in Matthieu Blazy’s trompe l’oeil leather jeans at the Bottega Veneta spring/summer 2023 show.
Why did the 2027 Met Gala change themes? Initially, the 2027 Met Gala theme was announced in August. The event was supposed to focus on former Givenchy, Dior, and Margiella creative director John Galliano and his influence on the fashion industry. Immediately, this choice caused a stir, given Galliano’s controversial past, including his previous racist and antisemitic public rants. Many spoke out against the Met’s decision to honor Galliano, considering his indiscretions, and donors to the museum threatened withholding gifts as a result. The controversy reached such a boiling point, it caused Galliano to step away from the event. “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,” Galliano wrote in a now-deleted statement on Instagram. “I do not want the debate surrounding me to place The Met in a difficult position or to distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute. I also recognize and respect that an exhibition honoring my work would be painful for some.”
Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, spoke on the abandonment of the original theme for the first time upon the announcement of its replacement. “The cancellation of the Galliano show was disappointing for everyone involved,” he said. “I wanted an exhibition that I felt had something new to say, and that I felt was relevant to different conversations. I committed myself to this really quickly because it brings up ideas of value and consumption and resourcefulness and makes us question what we overlook and what we discard.”
Cate Blanchett in Hodakova’s spoon top in August 2024.
What will be included in the 2027 Met Gala’s accompanying exhibition? Bolton has called “extraORDINARY” a kind of sequel to 2026’s “Costume Art” show, as both exhibitions focus on how clothes are worn. The “Costume Art” exhibition “placed the dressed body at the center of aesthetic experience,” Bolton explained. “I suppose it led me to think more about how we experience clothing in everyday life through habit and touch and movement and sensation.”
The 2027 iteration will feature 200 to 230 pieces, 30 to 40 percent of which will come from the museum’s collection. The rest will be donated or lent by fashion brands. Visitors can expect to see items including a 1930s couture puffer coat by Charles James, pieces from Marc Jacobs’s controversial grunge collection for Perry Ellis, and the Calvin Klein jeans worn by Brooke Shields in the famous 1980 ad. Matthieu Blazy’s trompe l’oeil leather jeans for Bottega Veneta will also be on display, a piece that perfectly encapsulates the exhibition.
The theme is two-pronged. One part will explore the elevation of archetypal garments, including tees and jeans. The second section will feature disposable materials like paper and aluminum, manipulated to create wearable art. There, one can expect pieces like the silverware-adorned dress from Maison Margiela's spring 2027 collection, as well as Hodakova’s spoon-laden pieces. “It will make us question: What do we overlook, what do we discard, what makes something worth keeping?” Bolton said. “I think that fashion is so often associated with the pursuit of the new and the ephemeral that I’m really interested in how possibilities can emerge through returning to familiar things. I think there’s something hopeful about discovering how much imagination the everyday can hold.”
A look from Maison Margiela spring/summer 2027.
When is the 2027 Met Gala? The Met Gala will, per usual, take place on the first Monday in May. In 2027, that falls on May 3. The accompanying exhibition will be open to the public from May 9 through January 9, 2028.
Every year, the Met Gala theme corresponds to the Costume Institute exhibition, as well as a broader idea of what one can expect from the red carpet fashion. The dress code, though, offers more specific guidelines for attendees. As of now, we do not know the specifics of the Met Gala dress code, which will likely be announced closer to the actual event. Bolton has shared his hopes for guests to attend in their versions of jeans, T-shirts, and puffers. “I want visitors to leave looking differently at the clothes they arrived in,” he said. “With a greater sense of what is worth noticing, valuing, and caring for.”
And the Met Gala isn’t alone in its dress code this time. Bolton is encouraging visitors to the exhibit to dress accordingly, asking everyone to wear “their favorite t-shirt or their favorite pair of jeans or their favorite hoodie” to the show. “There’ll be a humanity to it,” he said.
The co-chairs have yet to be announced, but we do know that Meta and Moncler will act as sponsors of the event.
Source: ShowBiz
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