John Galliano Withdraws From Met Gala After UES Rep Calls Out Racist, Antisemitic Remarks

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — Designer John Galliano has backed out of an exhibit in his honor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday after donors, advocates and Council Speaker Julie Menin urged the neighborhood institution to reconsider honoring a man with a record of racist and antisemitic outbursts.

Galliano is a British fashion designer who led Dior from 1996 to 2011, and Maison Margiela from 2014 to 2024, both to critical acclaim.

Subscribe

However, in 2011, he was fired from Dior after videos surfaced showing him praising Adolf Hitler and using an anti-Asian slur, and he was later convicted in France for making racist and antisemitic public insults.

"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," Galliano wrote in a statement. "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."

Galliano's extensive work was meant to be the theme of this year's Costume Institute exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, an honor that only two other designers have ever received.

The annual exhibit's theme becomes the dress code for the Met Gala, which is the biggest night of the year in the fashion world.

Though an exhibit could have acknowledged the designer's history, the Met Gala would have been a de facto celebration of the designer, which Menin called "wholly inappropriate."

"At a time when our city is confronting a serious rise in antisemitism, anti-Asian hate, and other forms of hatred, I find the decision to so prominently honor someone who has engaged in this behavior to be wholly inappropriate," Menin wrote in a letter to the museum on Aug. 26. "Words matter, and whom we choose to elevate is a direct statement of our values and what we are willing to tolerate."

The Met Gala raises millions for the museum, which sits on city-owned land in Menin's district.

A new theme for the Costume Institute has not yet been announced.

For questions, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.