The Metropolitan Museum of Art has finally picked a replacement theme for its 2027 gala — and it might mean the first Monday of May might come with a little less glitz than usual.
Announced Thursday, the new theme for the 2027 Met Gala exhibit is “ExtraOrdinary:
Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday.” The fundraising galaand accompanying exhibit will explore “how designers rework familiar garments, everyday objects, and commonplace materials through craft, construction, material experimentation, and conceptual wit.” In English? Think T-shirts, sweatpants, clothes made out of unorthodox materials like paper, or even more exciting, recognizable items like sweaters or coats turned into new works.
“Everyday clothes carry extraordinary amounts of meaning. We have a favorite T-shirt, we have a favorite pair of jeans, and we wear them until they literally fall apart. And those meanings develop through wearing,” Andrew Bolton, the Costume Institute’s curator in charge, said Thursday. “I like the idea that designers turn these familiar things into these incredible sources of wonder.”
The exhibit will include over 200 pieces that play with the sensible, mundane, and high fashion. According to the New York Times, close to 40 percent of the clothes will be from museum archives but designers and brands will donate and lend accompanying pieces as well. Some of the clothes people will be able to view in the museum include the Calvin Klein jeans from Brooke Shield’s controversial 1980 ad and Matthieu Blazy’s viral Bottega Veneta trompe l’oeil jeans (which cleverly combine printing and leather to look like denim).
The new theme comes two months after the organization cancelled its planned exhibit based on the life and work of British fashion designer John Galliano. The choice to devote an entire Met Gala to Galliano was a rare surprise. Only two living designers — Comme des Garçons’ Rei Kawakubo and Yves Saint Laurent — have ever been chosen as the focus of the exhibit. But before Galliano could become the third, an uproar surfaced over his past comments, specifically a 2011 anti-semitic and racist rant in a Paris bar. (Galliano apologized for the incident but it ended his time at Dior. He was also convicted of a hate crime in the French court system.)
On Aug. 31, Galliano backed out of the exhibit, saying he didn’t want the controversy to place the Met in a difficult position “or to distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute.”
“I understand that meaningful atonement is not achieved through an exhibition, institutional recognition, or a single public gesture,” Galliano wrote in an Instagram post. “It is a continuing responsibility, demonstrated through listening, learning, and one’s conduct over time.” At the time, Anna Wintour — a noted friend of Galliano — called the decision “courageous” and a “measure of the man” Galliano is.
While the exhibit focus is now set, there’s no official word on who will co-chair the event or what specifics the hosts will decide for the official red carpet. The fast turnaround of the new theme will inevitably put pressure on designers and creatives already planning their looks for the May event — now operating under a truncated timeline. There will always be guests who firmly miss the mark on their clothes. The chance to have that faux pas be in jeans? Well, that might be more fun for the rest of us, anyways.
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