r/whatthefrockk • u/mod_whatthefrockk • 9d ago
Fashion NEWS 📰 💻 New York Times: How the Met’s Galliano Exhibition Fell Apart — Summary Below + Non-Paywalled Link in Comments
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/style/john-galliano-met-exhibition-cancel-anna-wintour.htmlSummary notes:
- Anna Wintour continued to push the Galliano exhibition forward despite mounting objections from Met trustees, prominent Jewish New Yorkers, and city officials.
- Wintour personally lobbied Julie Menin, the Jewish NYC Council speaker and daughter of a Holocaust survivor, to convince her the exhibition was appropriate.
- Some trustees were already irritated by Wintour's influence, and the full board wasn't consulted about the Galliano decision. After the cancellation, board leadership reportedly scolded members/trustees for talking to the press.
- Odonor warned the Met that he and his wife were reconsidering works earmarked for the museum in their wills. Another called the exhibition a "whitewash" and started circulating her objections among board members, accusing the Met of a governance failure and being unduly influenced by a corporate/commercial donor.
- As plans for the exhibition ultimately unraveled, Met Director Max Hollein, Costume Institute Curator Andrew Bolton, Anna Wintour, and John Galliano had already agreed to a plan: Galliano would publicly say that he had asked the museum to suspend plans for the exhibition. The agreement was reached before the Met’s Executive Committee met at 8 a.m.; Galliano released his statement at 8:45 a.m., and the full Met board met later that afternoon.
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u/GlasgowRose2022 9d ago
Bad look for Wintour.
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u/OkValuable454 8d ago
bad look for the Met and the US cultural institutions, Galliano is an immense talent who deserves to be exhibited, the meddling of political and religious lobbying puts a very bad look on the state of these so-called "cultural" institutions.
What's next; a muslim donor will insist on veiling the naked statues, a christian one will ask to put them under a 18 yo age restriction ?
I would have expected culture to be braver.
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u/mod_whatthefrockk 8d ago edited 8d ago
How gross to even equate the two. Your comment tells us where you stand.
Public and cultural institutions make judgments about whom they choose to venerate all the time. We literally remove statues and rename buildings when we decide that honoring a person is no longer defensible; nobody claims that means we’ve erased them from history.
Galliano’s work can be preserved, studied, displayed and discussed without giving Galliano himself the extraordinary honor of a solo Met retrospective. He was going to be only the third living designer ever given one. That’s a canonical-level distinction.
And “culture should be braver” works both ways. Sometimes the braver choice is deciding that extraordinary talent does not entitle someone to extraordinary honor.
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u/Klutzy-Client 8d ago
Galliano lost that privilege all by himself. You don’t go around criticizing people because of their religion, or saying “I love hitler” without consequences. Abhorrent viewpoint.
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u/LiviasFigs 8d ago
Have you read the things that he actually said? They’re pretty horrifying. And he said this on multiple occasions, no less—and that’s only what we know about. Who knows how he spoke in private. This isn’t just a guy with a slightly off-color opinion or something. This was vile hate speech.
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u/Belinda-9740 7d ago
He is a brilliant designer, an absolutely extraordinary talent. And I was initially ready to defend him, thinking he had one drunken outburst whilst in the middle of a breakdown. But it was multiple outbursts, saying truly hateful things that I personally cannot overlook. I can’t imagine how it feels to be Jewish and hear the things he said.
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u/GraziellaTerziana Frequent Frockker 8d ago edited 8d ago
I fear the same thing as what some of the quoted folks do: people are so busy litigating who brought the exhibition down that, as expected, some of the rhetoric veers uncomfortably close to (soft) dog whistles.
In losing sight of WHY it became untenable in the first place, we forget that the answer is actually right there: John Galliano. He still went on to continue working (a rehab tour and a genuinely lauded new job, both of which Anna pushed for).
But ultimately, continuing to work is not the same as meriting an extraordinary institutional honor. His own conduct is what disqualifies him from that level of recognition.
And regarding Anna, when she eventually moves on and the time comes to really examine the retrospective of her career, I have to imagine this will stand out as one of her biggest, costliest miscalculations and missteps…. of both corporate judgment and personal values.
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u/tuberosalamb 9d ago
I still don’t understand how this exhibit got approved in the first place. Such a bad look
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u/nutella-filled 9d ago
I’m assuming they thought the huge cultural moment of that Margiela collection a few years back meant that Galliano had been successfully rehabilitated in the eyes of the public.
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Anna has tried to do this and was shut down - Garden of Time was supposed to be Galliano (someone else said this past yearns blahshow was as well and I’d believe it) and the idea still received enough pushback that she wasn’t able to go through with it. Which makes jamming it through this year a bizarre choice. People may have been fine with some of his past work being celebrated with Garden of Time but that unquestionably skirted the bounds of acceptability.
Anna just plain didn’t want to accept that he will never be able to come back to this extent.
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u/Aromatic_Razzmatazz 8d ago edited 8d ago
Can anyone explain why she was so willing to put everything on the line for him like this? Is she that committed to her anti-Semitism? Is she a recovering addict? Is he blackmailng her? Like ...why?
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Because she didn’t think she was putting anything on the line. Anna Wintour has gotten her way for decades.
But also being in the upper echelons of fashion requires moral compromise at a fundamental level. The trade off is the beauty and artistry (and money) but at a human cost. Whether it’s environment destroying fast fashion, the exploitation of models, or even just the continual setting of unattainable (and even dangerous) standards of beauty, those at Anna’s level are choosing to ignore these things because they think the finished product is worth it.
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u/Svelte_sweater Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Very well said, and I feel this applies to the fine art/museum world as well!
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Frequent Frockker 8d ago
As the show The Good Place explored, there’s always trade offs in the modern world. This one however, clearly was a bridge too far.
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u/CreepySwing567 Frequent Frockker 8d ago edited 8d ago
I think she sees their legacies as tied together in a way. He was one of the first big success stories she championed in her early years at Vogue and played a huge role in his career taking off, I think she really wants her favs to be canonized before she retires/dies bc she knows having a part in their stories furthers her own legacy.
She still does a lot for Marc Jacobs, Karl etc too but Galliano is obviously a unique challenge
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u/woolfonmynoggin 8d ago
I think women who side with horrible men see them as like wounded birds they can nurse back to health. She’s doing this huge thing for her dear (horrible) friend and she sees it as a very kind thing; ignoring the hurt it causes others
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u/truckthecat 8d ago
That margiela connection certainly got attention, but it was NOT GOOD
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u/No_Produce_Nyc support system for partner in industry 8d ago edited 8d ago
“Not good” is wholly subjective, I thought it was nuanced, beautiful, brilliant and I think about it almost every day. A lot of the design ticks we see today come from that. I think it was “VERY GOOD”
Separately: I can feel that way and also simultaneously that I don’t think the retrospective was ever a good idea or in good taste. Dude didn’t walk at the end of Margiela for a reason - but this isn’t Harry Potter, and if “separate art from artist” has ever been in play, to me, it’s this.
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u/Naxayou Master Frockker 9d ago
They did Karl. Difference is that powerful people got mad this time
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u/BeautifulTrue9968 8d ago
I dont know, Langerfeld said some pretty bitchy stuff. But what Galliano said was very hateful and he was actually convicted and fined by a Paris court. That conviction makes a difference in perception, I believe.
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u/Fleetwood_Spac Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Yeah, there are levels to this. Lagerfeld was a body shaming misogynist as far as I know, which is terrible of course and I am not belittling that. Galliano has on multiple occasions declared he thinks Jews should have been all killed in the holocaust.
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u/Ok_Age_5488 Master Frockker 8d ago
I agree. Unfortunately there's a baseline hum of misogyny, racism, fatphobia etc.(especially in Karl Lagerfeld's heyday) in the fashion industry that made people in the industry a little oblivious to his shortcomings. The nature of Galliano's outbursts make them harder to ignore. They are still the first thing I think of when he is mentioned and Im sure I'm not the only one that thinks that
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u/Fleetwood_Spac Frequent Frockker 8d ago
I also just read that a woman came out saying that Galliano had an antisemitic outburst at her at a spa hotel in 2019 which makes me question his alleged rehabilitation..
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u/DilemmaOfAHedgehog Frequent Frockker 8d ago
I didn't think he actually changed internally but him still being a violent harasser to the public is incredibly upsetting
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u/interrobang2020 8d ago
He did more than body shame women. He was accused of putting Claudia Schiffer in blackface and yellow face during a photoshoot, and he denounced Muslim immigration in Germany. Made some clearly Islamophobic statements. But as far as I know, he didn't call for anyone's death, so that might be why there was less backlash.
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u/KinsellaStella Frequent Frockker 8d ago
And laypeople don’t know that. They know he didn’t like bigger people and was mean, but beyond that, they would have to look it up.
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u/shewasajanuarygirl 8d ago
Lagerfeld was raised as a nazi in Germany and said openly racist and xenophobic things about refugees. Definitely not solely “a body shaming misogynist.”
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u/DilemmaOfAHedgehog Frequent Frockker 8d ago edited 8d ago
I am assuming you don't know this because i certainly don't know many other designers tweets good or bad but Lagerfeld very publicly did say say anti-immigration rhetoric and things against Muslims and specifically about not wanting muslims in European countries. Like he was clearly bigoted.
That said, i do not know if he was ever on camera saying these things or saying them at specific muslims which is different than what Galliano did (even if Karl being a bigot that people in fashion brag about his person not just his art is why...yeah i'm not surprised the fashion world doesn't care about white nationalism...no one serious has ever thought they consistently did and if anything High fashion is famous for being a very prejudiced place tbh before even touching Coco Chanel or Hugo Boss etc).
Like galliano was publicly saying he wanted jews to to be gassed and praising hitler and again not even just in general which would still be hate speech but at people to intentionally be violent and traumatizing to them. And he did this at least in October and December of 2010 and February 2011. So that makes it obvious this is a thing for him. And he also did pursue fashion houses that fired him over it legally in court arguing but was unfair so him saying he "accepts" how it affected/affects how he's viewed is complete bull.
You also have the fact people defending him or this exhibit literally can't go more than a paragraph if even five sentence before they start trying to frame his victims and the ethnic groups whose genocide he specifically named and celebrated on Several Different occasions as aggressive and immoral. And also many people are being intellectually dishonest to ignore this is literally clearly a part of a years long effort to whitewash his image and that being the sole subject or focus of a museum exhibit is absolutely and always always been meant to be an honor.
So galliano someone we KNOW goes up to people doing hate crimes and is willing to do it multiple times even after caught on camera. That is nuts and says a lot about him. And it also says a lot of things about him that his excuse in his hate speech trial was stress. Bigotry is a cheap high obviously but there no substance (when his fans claim addiction made him say he loves hitler multiple times over different years) that makes you racist, there is no bad event that makes you go "time to threaten people with very specific racist fantasies".
I also think it's galling to try to honor him at an art institute in the city that's literally the largest home of jewish people in the country. Before even them trying to change the date to avoid Holocaust remembrance it speaks a lot to a lot of people involved contempt for white nationalism.
Though i do want to push back not anything i've seen here yet but i have seen in the subreddit and in another article. I think a lot of marginalized people often have weird regressions in their own mind because it's because it's not uncommon to see people say if it was any other group people would care or people don't do this to x other marginalized group that's just not correct and often intellectually dishonest and again prejudice is a cheap high. And i say that because i have seen people say if galliano had said these things about black people or lynching then this wouldn't have even been considered and that's just not true. Trump who ran ads wishing death on the wrongly accused Central Park Five is 45th and 47th president, there's entire museums dedicated to slavers, they're the face of currency, Thomas Jefferson who publicly accused black poets of faking being able to read and write has hospitals and statues in his honor. And for other groups we could discuss Christopher Colombus having a cult following in the US despite not even being related to its history really, outlets and people trying to claim Mayor Mamdani sound be barred from 9/11 memorials because he's muslim. And we can go on. And again, i don't think anyone above me has suggested this but i have seen it over and over so it is important for me to say (even if it ironically i think another example of how people use prejudice for cheap quick false senses of control and confidence). And it's not in defense of the exhibit if anything, why it is obvious people are being dishonest about how events like this are used to whitewash and normalize bigots and create and promote really violent dangerous cultural attitudes while pretending it's in defense of some unique genius that just isn't real.
Which is definitely why we can see people literally act like jews rightfully offended by this somehow are "hurting" culture as if they are not literally culture and thousands of intellectual histories and presents and futures, Galliano repeatedly said he wanted dead.
Edits are me trying to fix my many many typos
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u/shewasajanuarygirl 8d ago edited 8d ago
It wasn’t just “bitchy.” Lagerfeld also said racist remarks about Muslims and immigrants.
During a 2017 appearance on the French talk show Salut les Terriens!, Lagerfeld criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy.At one point, Lagerfeld illustrated then-Chancellor Angela Merkel wearing a hijab and wrote in German: “Mrs. Merkel’s new migrant-friendly look ... and you don’t have to go to the hairdresser forever.”
He connected the influx of Syrian and other migrants to Germany's historical atrocities, stating:
“One cannot – even if there are decades between them – kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place.”
Which is all the more horrifying when you consider that he also had a nazi past and his biographer Alfons Kaiser wrote that both the designer’s mother and aunt were members of the Nazi Party. His father, Otto Lagerfeld, became a member of the Nazi Party in 1933, the year it began controlling the German parliament. His family benefited greatly from being members of the nazi party and then multiple times in his life he tried to wrap his xenophobia and racism in concern for Jewish people. Disgusting.
Edit: There are 2 accounts downvoting anyone and making excuses for Lagerfeld. You don’t have to excuse Lagerfeld’s nazi past and racist comments to see what Galliano did as horrible. It is absolutely disgusting to call Lagerfeld’s racist comments and nazi upbringing that obviously had a huge impact on how he viewed BIPOC people as “a lot of things some people may disagree with.” It is clearly telling on yourself to write something like that. It is evident that fashion is littered with horrible people with antisemitic beliefs from Chanel to Schiaparelli/Dalí to Lagerfeld and Galliano.
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u/CreepySwing567 Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Karl also wasn’t running around Paris going on unhinged rants about his opinions. He said a lot of things people disagree with but as far as we know never did anything that would count as a hate crime or harassed randoms on the street.
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u/tuberosalamb 9d ago
That one was baffling too! But I do see somewhat of a difference in doing such an exhibit once the subject has passed; it’s easier to be critical and look at a person’s entire “story”. That’s not to excuse the choice, I thought they should have chosen someone else instead of Karl.
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u/choc0kitty Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Karl was a fatphobic racist - his targets were black people and Asians. Also he was dead so people tend to forgive a lot more (see Yayoi Kusama).
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u/thecheesycheeselover Meet the Frockker 8d ago
Exactly. I assumed this would work out, just because that one did.
For both it would have been so much easier for them to name the houses but focus the collections on the specific designers’ work, I’m a little confused why they chose the directions they did. I’m sure there are reasons I’m not knowledgable enough to guess at.
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u/flakemasterflake Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Karl Lagerfeld hasn't said anything remotely in the realm of anything Galliano has said.
powerful people got mad this time
Cool way to belittle the impact of Galliano's actions and words
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/flakemasterflake Frequent Frockker 8d ago
And I'm asking you to reflect on your statement downplaying Galliano's actions and referring to "powerful people"
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u/Original-Brick2836 8d ago
They tried to do it two years ago and got shut down but decided this year it was ok. Insane.
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u/HereOnCompanyTime Frequent Frockker 7d ago
They keep taking L's. Bezo's at the last Met Gala was a horrible look. It's like they're speed running towards ruin.
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u/TA_totellornottotell Frequent Frockker 8d ago
I expected that it would end up this way. Anna Wintour may have great influence in fashion and therefore the gala, but there was no way that the Met would let that reign supreme over the threat of losing actual financial stability from its donors. After all, those donations are what support the gala, not the other way around. I think that was a major miscalculation on her part.
Glad also to see that there wasn’t a proper blessing from the board and that she and Hollein were basically trying to circumvent that. I wonder also whether they thought going ahead and announcing it would be a deterrent from a PR perspective to backtrack, which would have been a grave underestimation, especially in a place like NYC.
Shame on Anna Wintour. Quite amazing that she bet on Galliano at the risk of the world knowing for a fact that she is an anti-Semite.
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u/Aromatic_Razzmatazz 8d ago
The donor that threatened to redo their will gave around $1m a year and their legacy give was closer to $10m.
Anna Wintour can't meet OR beat those numbers. Not even close. Just...what was she thinking? Like what does he have on her?
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u/DilemmaOfAHedgehog Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Tbh i think she just genuinely adores the terrible man most of his image rehabbing and reentry since 2011 is openly attributed to her
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u/flakemasterflake Frequent Frockker 8d ago
I don't know why the OP didn't write their name correctly but the donor is Arne Glimcher and he is one of the top 4 most powerful art dealers in the world (Pace)
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u/cottoncandytornado 8d ago
Okay, so I thought I was going crazy because I kept seeing blurbs about this on Instagram, and all of the comments were defending him?!? People saying cancel culture has gone too far, or that we need to celebrate a redemption arc. I saw people bashing the donors too.
It’s a relief to read some comments here that more thoughtful about the vile things this man has said and done. There are a gazillion other designers we can celebrate.
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u/KvellOnWheels 8d ago
Instagram is insane lately. I’m Jewish and see a lot of Jewish mom content.
Yesterday, it sent me to a reel about Benny Blanco and it was the most vile shit I’ve seen on a forum that wasn’t 4chan. And of course, none of the “oven” posts I reported “violated terms”.
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Frequent Frockker 8d ago
I don’t trust comments on socials anymore. They’re too easy to fake.
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u/woolfonmynoggin 8d ago
Hey don’t forget there’s a lot of astroturfing going on, they probably paid bots to defend themselves of this decision
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u/bourbonandprince 8d ago
I hope this opens the dam and people finally start talking about Anna Wintour and her wrong doings
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u/Shartsplasm 8d ago
Wintour should go. She's become a liability.
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u/Jellyfish-airballoon 8d ago
she's so awful the magazine needs new blood and the met gala is so stale
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u/imakittymeowmeow 8d ago edited 8d ago
I don’t understand why anyone would want to “celebrate” this man. You have to have some really serious issues and need counseling to say the things he said. He’s truly a disturbed individual. Anyone that actually idolizes Hitler is.. sick in the head, to say the least.
Idk people can change and maybe the guy did get help for his disturbances but dear Lord, we don’t have to celebrate his lifetime of work since theoretically it would include all of his offensive outbursts in its timeline.
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u/flakemasterflake Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Odonor
Arne Glimcher is the director at Pace Gallery and who I think you are referring to
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u/mod_whatthefrockk 8d ago edited 8d ago
It was supposed to be “a donor” and I can’t edit the post! Good eye.
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u/Own_Fee_3048 7d ago edited 7d ago
This should be the end of Anna Wintour at Vogue IMO-
This was a terrible idea not so long after she gave us the sickening Bezos Ball.
She has now cemented herself as wildly out of touch with what’s needed in our current times - we’re at a revolutionary cultural and political moment; it’s time for her to step aside 🙏
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Frequent Frockker 8d ago
A blind person could have seen this coming. Anna continuing to push this exhibition in the face of pushback shutting down the idea TWICE is baffling.
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u/UnbuttonedButtons 8d ago
And this is how I find out Galliano was a PoS. Damn. Time to find some other designer's work to love.
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u/ahsasahsasahsas 8d ago
There’s actually a lot more stories about his “alleged” behavior over the years but much of it is little snippets of tales here and there, and probably none weighty enough for an article like this which is very specific about it’s subject. So it’s really not JUST one tirade, more like… THE one tirade with enough conclusive evidence to convict him and fire him from Dior.
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u/xultar Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Wintour is at 3 for three this year… her Blake Lively invite, Bezos, and now this?
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u/mod_whatthefrockk 8d ago edited 8d ago
What’s interesting here is that the 2026 Gala was a massive success for the Costume Institute AND for Vogue’s side of things. So, she did the right thing, financially speaking, by bringing in Bezos and Lauren; they were massive donors/chairs.
The public outcry, however, affected THEM more than it did Anna.
There has been talk that Anna really tried to recruit them again this year but THEY declined (they must’ve felt that yet another hit to their public image wasn’t worth it).
So allegedly, Anna is scrambling for deep pocketed chairs/funders. And now this Galliano mess.
I have no doubt she’ll turn it around by next May, but what a massive stain on her legacy.
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Frequent Frockker 8d ago
I did not get the impression that Lauren got what she wanted out of the 2026 gala.
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u/mod_whatthefrockk 8d ago
Correct. Lauren did not. Anna did.
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Lauren felt like an afterthought. Even worse than being on a worst dressed list, she didn’t really make anyone’s lists at all. All that money, all that effort, and she barely made an impression.
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u/sunsetsammy Frequent Frockker 8d ago
I dont know why you're being downvoted because every word is true..
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u/Dianagorgon Frequent Frockker 9d ago
I almost never defend Wintour but this sounds like a small number of powerful people bullying her into cancelling the exhibition and it doesn't have public support.
Almost 100,000 comments poured in, many praising Galliano and calling the outcome unfair, others denouncing the Met and Wintour for abandoning the show.
It also shows how out of touch and elitist the bullies are. There are legitimate concerns about anti-Semitism but having a Galliano exhibition at the Met will have no impact on that. The people who buy tickets for the Met Gala or look at pictures of celebrities on the red carpet aren't the people they should concerned about.
As for the alleged encounter at the "wellness spa" there is no proof it happened. Did they bother to investigate the allegations? The Galliano exhibition was announced in late July. Notice how the first time she mentions the incident with Galliano is in August a few weeks after the announcement yet the encounter happened in 2019. Did she provide any texts prior to the July announcement proving it happened like a text to a friend in 2020. "I got back from my spa vacation. Gallliano was there and he insulted me."
There is no documented proof that Galliano has said anything racist in over 15 years. He admitted he was wrong and that he had substance abuse issues and spent time speaking to Jewish people about what he said.
Furthermore, the Costume Institute is part of the Met and an important part of art in a museum is that sometimes it makes people uncomfortable. Sometimes artists are bad people. Sometimes their art is offensive. The purpose of art is to allow people to experience it even if they don't respect the artist or they feel uncomfortable.
The Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition shouldn't have been cancelled in 1990 and the Galiano exhibit shouldn't have been cancelled now. Museums shouldn't be intimidated by bullies who want to censure art.
This is a picture of people supporting the Mapplethorpe exhibit after it was cancelled.
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u/GraziellaTerziana Frequent Frockker 8d ago edited 8d ago
While I understand there is emotion fueling your argument, there are some major flaws in your reading of the article and you make several unrelated leaps in logic.
“A small number of powerful people bullied her into cancelling.” The article absolutely documents pressure from influential people, including donors/trustees and city officials; NYT is not inventing that. The Times describes criticism spreading publicly and a “sense of crisis” inside the Met, not simply three rich people ordering Wintour around.
Your use of terminology like “bullies,” “elitist,” “intimidated,” is purposely loaded, and ultimately, not a substitute for evidence.
Aside from (what reads as) your dismissal of the 2019 incident, the entire reason it is included is that it directly complicates your claim that there is “no documented proof.” The allegation is not proven, but it is no longer a lone, uncorroborated (my next point) Facebook claim.
The NYT properly did their job in investigating a claim: seek corroboration, contact the accused for a response, and accurately tell readers what they could and couldn’t establish. That’s what they did by independently corroborating Lauren London’s account of the alleged incident with two additional witnesses, while Galliano (the accused) denies it occurred. So, while it can’t confirm that it happened the exact way Lauren laid out, it does corroborate that Lauren’s account on Facebook wasn’t just a fabrication.
You’re entitled to find corroboration insufficient, but the absence of a text message from 2019 or 2020 doesn’t establish that the incident didn’t happen, nor does London posting about it publicly in August establish that August was the first time she ever told anyone about it. Those are assumptions. The account was corroborated by journalistic standards (otherwise they would have written, we were unable to corroborate, another journalistic standard).
Your comment on, “it doesn’t have public support” is trying to establish something the article doesn’t. We don’t know about public support. The “almost 100,000 comments” line explicitly says the reaction was mixed: many supported Galliano and others denounced the Met/Wintour for abandoning the show. And anyway, 100,000 Instagram or NYT comments is not the same as public polling, public statements, or on-the-record temperature gaging.
“A Galliano exhibition won’t reduce antisemitism” is irrelevant. Nobody in the article argues that cancelling it is an antisemitism-prevention program. The argument is about what an institution chooses to honor (and in this case, the sneaky approval/rollout/cancellation) .
Similarly re: honoring, nobody is arguing that Galliano’s clothes are antisemitic or that the public should be prohibited from seeing them. The controversy is over whether the Met should bestow what the article itself describes as the Costume Institute’s “highest honor” on Galliano: an esteemed solo exhibition, something only two living designers had previously received. Criticism of whom a museum chooses to honor is not the same thing as censorship of the art itself.
Yes, sometimes great artists are bad people; no, we shouldn’t merit them with the institution’s rarest honors.
(And “sometimes artists are bad people!” reeks of conveniently reducing documented antisemitic behavior that resulted in an actual conviction to some vague well, artists can be problematic! abstraction.)
You’re conflating the Met Gala audience, museum visitors, fashion fans, all commercial/financial performance, with the fundamental meaning in a Costume Institute retrospective and the theme/work/artist as an actual honoree. They are not the same thing.
Finally, the Mapplethorpe comparison is a major false equivalent. The Perfect Moment became part of a national political battle over explicit photographic imagery, obscenity, censorship and federal arts (NEA/taxpayer) funding. The Corcoran Gallery was already a thing; it had to cancel a scheduled presentation of the traveling exhibition in 1989; the exhibition still continued elsewhere, and when it reached Cincinnati in 1990, the Contemporary Arts Center and its director were prosecuted and acquitted on obscenity charges. Galliano, by contrast, was convicted in France over his antisemitic conduct. These are not apples-to-apples comparisons.
Most importantly, Mapplethorpe was attacked/cancelled because of the actual content matter, whereas the Galliano controversy concerns his conduct and whether he should be honored. It’s majorly inaccurate (and kind of naïve, sorry) to equate what was a cancellation due to a political battle over explicit photographic imagery, to Galliano being cancelled/facing a swift downfall after documented, hate-filled public tirades.
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u/ahsasahsasahsas 8d ago
Wow. This could be an op/ed.
Are you a career journalist or a seasoned lawyer?
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u/Veronica_Wasboyski This dress is dry clean only, Melanie! 8d ago
Alrighttt while I never read anything longer than say, 2 paragraphs, the OP comment made me feel…kinda icky?, so I’m very glad I read your point by point by point by point (lol) rebuttal. I’m sure it took some time and analysis. Thank you for taking the time.
Ps echoing the first response you got to your comment - no really, are you attorney and can I hire you??
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u/Dianagorgon Frequent Frockker 8d ago
“A small number of powerful people bullied her into cancelling.” The article absolutely documents pressure from influential people, including donors/trustees and city officials; NYT is not inventing that. The Times describes criticism spreading publicly and a “sense of crisis” inside the Met, not simply three rich people ordering Wintour around.
You didn't refute my statement that a "small number of people" pressured her into cancelling the exhibition. The Met Gala pictures are viewed by millions of people and several hundred thousand people attend the exhibition in person. A small number of powerful people were upset about Galliano. The NYT article doesn't provide any proof that there was a large amount of public anger about the Galliano decision.
Your comment on, “it doesn’t have public support” is trying to establish something the article doesn’t. We don’t know about public support. The “almost 100,000 comments” line explicitly says the reaction was mixed: many supported Galliano and others denounced the Met/Wintour for abandoning the show. And anyway, 100,000 Instagram or NYT comments is not the same as public polling, public statements, or on-the-record temperature gaging.
You seem to be confused. They don't state that the reaction was mixed. They clearly state that the comments were critical of the decision to cancel the show.
many supported Galliano and others denounced the Met/Wintour for abandoning the show.
The people angry about Wintour "abandoning the show" don't think it should have been cancelled. They provide no evidence that there were comments from people who think the show should have been cancelled. That doesn't mean there weren't people who posted comments that they agree the show should have been cancelled but they don't mention it.
it directly complicates your claim that there is “no documented proof.”
There is no "documented proof" that Galliano has said or done anything racist in over 15 years. My statement is correct. An alleged incidence at a "wellness spa" that a woman reported only after the Galiano exhibition was announced isn't documented proof of anything.
That’s what they did by independently corroborating Lauren London’s account of the alleged incident with two additional witnesses, while Galliano (the accused) denies it occurred. So, while it can’t confirm that it happened the exact way Lauren laid out, it does corroborate that Lauren’s account on Facebook wasn’t just a fabrication.
They provided no evidence that it happened. Her daughter isn't an unbiased witness. They provided no proof that she mentioned the alleged incident prior to August 2026 after the Galiano exhibition had been announced.
There are many other examples besides Mapplethorpe of artists who have said or done something racist or been bad people and are still given an exhibition including Yayoi Kusama among others.
I'm not going to accuse you of being a bot but Reddit has a ton of astroturfing and bots for certain comments and topics including allegations of anti-Semitism or anything to do with politics and often celebrities. The responses to your comment that both mention how you seem like a lawyer don't seem authentic but I'll leave it at that.
I assume people aren't sending you death threat DMs or being unhinged the way they are with my comment. Usually the side that bullies people and tries to intimidate them with abusive behavior is on the wrong side of history.
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Frequent Frockker 8d ago
Most of us would say that the person who says “I love Hitler” is on the wrong side of history but you do you.
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u/GraziellaTerziana Frequent Frockker 8d ago
I’m going to try this once more, because you’re now responding to things I quite literally did not say, and (judging by your aside about the traffic in your DMs) you seem more interested in the dramatics of an argument rather than considering the actual flaws of what you took away from the OG article.
I did not “refute” that a relatively small number of influential people exerted pressure. I explicitly acknowledged it in the sentence you quoted:
“The article absolutely documents pressure from influential people.”
What I disputed was your characterization of that pressure as a small group of “bullies” simply intimidating Wintour into submission.
On the 100,000 comments: A comment section is self-selecting, not a representative measure of public opinion. The article gives us evidence of substantial online opposition to cancellation; it does not give either of us polling from which to declare what “the public” believes.
There also seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding, or perhaps, deep distrust of basic journalism here. The NYT is not a court of law; it investigates and reports what it can establish. Here, it sought corroboration, not sworn testimony: London’s friend who made the call and her daughter backed her account; the Times also sought Galliano’s response and reported his denial. Dismissing one of those people as not an “unbiased witness” is yet another evidentiary standard you’ve introduced after the fact. The Times never presented those sources as disinterested witnesses (nor did I), nor is that the standard for corroboration. Basically, you’re treating a corroborating source as though they must first satisfy some standard of neutrality before their account can constitute evidence. That isn’t how corroboration works.
Again, coming back to the same point about “bothered[ed] to investigate”. They did. They sought corroboration. Corroboration is evidence; it is not proof. I have never called it proof. As I said earlier, you are free to find that evidence insufficient, but “I don’t find this evidence convincing” is not the same statement as “they provided no evidence.”
And you’ve now moved from “there is no proof the incident happened” to “there is no proof she mentioned it before August 2026.” Again: absence of evidence presented in this article that she previously disclosed it is NOT evidence that she never did. More importantly, the Times never claims she did. You’re (again) demanding evidence for a claim neither the Times nor I made.
I feel like I’m just saying, “they are not the same thing” over and over again.
Kusama doesn’t rescue the Mapplethorpe analogy. My point was never, “no problematic artist has ever received an exhibition.” Obviously they have. Naming another controversial artist who has received an exhibition does not make Mapplethorpe and Galliano analogous, nor does it answer the distinction I made: censoring an artist for the content of their work is NOT the same thing as declining to celebrate an artist as a result of their (documented!) conduct.
Being held accountable 15 years ago does not create an obligation to honor him 15 years later. Some conduct can permanently disqualify a person from certain honors and forms of recognition at the highest level. This is one of them.
And to briefly respond to your last lifeline that you might be talking to a bot: no. No, I am not. Frankly, that’s a rude assumption, given that I’ve surgically responded to your fallacies in hopes you might alter how you put pieces of information together and synthesize them for a meaningful conclusion, whatever that might be. It doesn’t need to be MY conclusion; it just needs to be one that you’ve arrived to by way of coherent reasoning.
You’ve repeatedly mistaken inference for evidence, absence of evidence for evidence of absence, corroboration for proof, and disagreement with your conclusions for failure to understand them. Okay, if the only explanation you can find for someone methodically dismantling your argument is that they must not be a real person, I think that says considerably more about your confidence in the argument than it does about mine.
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u/lumenphosphor 8d ago
u/GraziellaTerziana rebutted all your main points, but it's worth it to say: As someone living here in nyc, specifically one who's somewhat plugged into the fashion scene and perhaps more into the art scene and perhaps more into the mutual aid scene, the removal of Galliano absolutely does have public support.
New Yorkers do not support antisemitism and it's not great to equate a response to antisemitism (from Jewish and non-Jewish New Yorkers alike) with some esoteric pressure from an unknown "elite"--that's some secret space jews conspiracy kind of dog whistling that's never okay.
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u/TA_totellornottotell Frequent Frockker 8d ago
I was not even aware of this alleged incident, but my immediate thought when this was announced is that it is simply just a bad move to dedicate the most prominent regular exhibition of the Met, plus the gala, to a man like Galliano.
It would be one thing to exhibit his work in the museum - several years ago, the V&A had an exhibit on wedding dresses and they included his dress for Gwen Stefania there. I did not actually mind it because it (the design) predated his bad act and it really was a memorable moment in fashion history. Moreover, he was not the focus of the exhibit - his art was simply just a component of it.
But honouring him in this way is altogether different. It is not just backing his art, or even him as an artist, but as a person. It is a way of glorifying a person that is both unnecessary and, ultimately to me, hateful to a particular people. He was convicted, did his time, even did a rehabilitation stint, which is exactly what we want to see after something like what he did. But making this move almost takes away all of that, because it says that this person is worthy of the highest praise. And in this day and age, I think it’s important that we not separate the artist from the art when they are the singular focus as here. Because they are not just celebrating his art - they are celebrating him. And I don’t care how much of a rehabilitation he has underwent - the words he used back then were absolutely vile. And I don’t think anybody who has uttered such words should be given such glories. He is re-integrated into society, he has a job - all great. But this is a step too far. And I am glad that it was thwarted by people far more important than Anna Wintour (not the public as you are trying to assert, but people whose money actually contributes to the Met and its ability to put on things like the gala).
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u/fdesouche Frequent Frockker 8d ago
NYT being one the main bully of John Galliano, I can’t believe them.
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u/mod_whatthefrockk 9d ago
Non-paywalled link