Met Gala 2027 theme, spring exhibit revealed after plan to celebrate John Galliano is scrapped
The Metropolitan Museum of Art revealed its new spring exhibit and 2027 Met Gala theme weeks after they had to scrap their original one based on controversial designer John Galliano.
The Costume Institute's new exhibit will be titled "extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of Everyday." It will explore how designers rework familiar garments, everyday objects and commonplace materials, according to The Met.
The exhibit is also the theme for the annual Met Gala, which is formally called the Costume Institute Benefit.
"From jeans, T-shirts, and puffer coats, to paper, plastic, and metal, the exhibition will examine how design reveals unexpected possibilities within everyday things. It will also consider how wearing, styling, and caring for them shapes their significance over time," organizers said.
The Met Gala is one of the fashion world's biggest events that raises money for the Costume Institute department's exhibits, publications, acquisitions, and operations. Funding also goes toward other museum activities.
It will take place Monday, May 3, and the exhibit opens May 9 through Jan. 9, 2028.
Met officials said the new theme will expand on the current exhibit, "Costume Art," which places the dressed body at the center of aesthetic experience.
The Met says fashion's connection with the body is fundamental, as clothes shape identity and encounters. The spring 2027 exhibition will explore how design brings attention to familiar things.
"The ordinary is never quite as simple as it appears," said Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge of The Costume Institute. "A pair of jeans, a white shirt, or a sweatshirt can hold traces of a life—the habits, memories, and attachments that make something our own. Designers work with that familiarity, revealing unexpected possibilities within forms and materials we think we already know. The exhibition invites us to discover how much imagination the everyday can hold, and how looking again might change what we value and care for."
Organizers have yet to announce the gala's dress code, but it is typically tied into the theme.
Last year's dress code was "Fashion is Art," which was based on the "Costume Art" exhibit and gala theme.
The spring exhibit was initially going to be "John Galliano: Horizons," highlighting the British designer's work. It quickly came under fire due to Galliano's history of antisemitic and racist comments.
A little less than a month later, Galliano and the museum said the planned exhibit would not go forward.