It’s been nearly two months since The Metropolitan Museum of Art canceled the planned “John Galliano: Horizons” Spring 2027 Costume Institute exhibition, which would have spotlighted the controversial designer and his decades-long career. This left everyone wondering how (and if) the museum would choose to replace it. Well, now we know: by doing a complete 180 and spotlighting the ordinary.
The new Spring 2027 Costume Institute exhibit is “extraOrdinary: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday,” the Met announced on Thursday morning. (The New York Times was the first to break the news.) The exhibit will spotlight everyday items (think: denim, white T-shirts and even paper) but reimagined through a high-fashion lens.
“The Costume Institute’s spring 2027 exhibition will explore how designers transform familiar garments, materials and objects, inviting visitors to see them anew,” per the press release. “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. It will also consider how meaning develops through use and care.”
The exhibit will include over 200 pieces and spotlight works from designers like Marc Jacobs, Charles James, Junya Watanabe, Matthieu Blazy and more.
The theme marks a drastic shift from the planned Galliano exhibit, which would have showcased extravagant fashion and fantastical couture. After the museum faced widespread criticism for planning to spotlight a designer with a history of antisemitism and racism, it’s not too surprising that the new theme leaves little room for controversy.
“I wanted an exhibition that I felt had something new to say, and that I felt was relevant to different conversations,” Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, told the New York Times. “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.”
“extraOrdinary: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday” opens on May 9, 2027, with the Met Gala taking place May 3, though the dress code has not been specified yet. (The question on everyone’s minds: Will this be the first year celebrities will dress down rather than up?)
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