My god, what a Met Gala mess

Style-ish

The podcast 'Style-ish' discusses the cancellation of the John Galliano exhibition at the 2027 Met Gala, exploring the controversy surrounding Galliano's past anti-Semitic and racist remarks, his

Key takeaways

• The Met Gala's decision to postpone John Galliano's exhibition was likely influenced by donor pressure despite his public apology and years of rehabilitation.
• Anna Wintour's use of the word 'postpone' instead of 'cancel' suggests a potential future reconsideration, signaling strategic PR nuance.

Main topics

• Cancellation of John Galliano's Met Gala exhibition
• John Galliano's past controversies and public redemption

Notable quotes

"I have decided with great sadness that it is the best for the exhibition to not take place at this time." – John Galliano

Conclusion

The cancellation of John Galliano's Met Gala exhibition underscores the ongoing tension between artistic

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:04) Shameless Media. This episode of Stylish is brought to you by Swiss. Shop Swiss's range of women's health supplements at Swiss.com.au. Speaker 7 (0:16) Happy Wednesday. This is Stylish, the podcast for all things fashion, lifestyle, brand and beauty. She returns. She's back. Speaker 8 (0:25) We just forced her to do the intro because we said Jo and I have been carrying the load here. Oh, Speaker 7 (0:29) I'm so sorry. Speaker 8 (0:30) Who are you? Their backs are heavy. Speaker 7 (0:32) Hi, if you haven't met me, I'm Madison Sullivan Thorpe. I am joined by Joanna Fleming and Rhiannon Joyce. Hello, Madison Sullivan Speaker 3 (0:39) Thorpe. Speaker 7 (0:39) Rhiannon Joyce Waddell, are we doing that yet? No, just for... Speaker 8 (0:44) Cop that. No, it is my full name, but my stage name is still Rhiannon Joyce. Wait, have you changed your name? I have. Oh, you have? Okay. I hyphenated, but stage name Rhiannon Joyce. Speaker 7 (0:55) My showbiz name, if you will. It's all showbiz, baby. Yeah. Good to Speaker 2 (1:00) be back with the girlies. Speaker 8 (1:01) Good to have Speaker 2 (1:02) you back. It's been a while. Speaker 8 (1:03) I Speaker 2 (1:03) know. I feel like I haven't recorded with either of you in ages. Speaker 8 (1:06) Yeah, rotating roster now. So it means we have a few more fresh faces in here and we're mixing it up. Mads is back and we're so happy to have you. Tell us, tell us what we're talking about today. Speaker 7 (1:15) I mean, not to feel like breaking news, but literally as of about 11pm last night, because we record on Tuesday morning, we had the news drop that the Met Gala has dropped the John Galliano exhibition. And honestly, this... Black Channel between the hours of 11pm to 6am, I don't think has ever gone off more than it did last night. I Speaker 8 (1:35) can't believe how Speaker 7 (1:36) many people were awake at that Speaker 8 (1:37) time. It was you, Mads, Naima, and I think someone else dropped it in the chat maybe, but what were you guys doing up first of all? Sleep when I'm dead. Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. But if you haven't seen it, guys, we'll give you a really quick recap of what's happened. So this is the full statement written by John Galliano and his team. The statement reads, After much reflection and discussion with the Met and all those involved, I have decided with great sadness that it is the best for the exhibition to not take place at this time. Speaker 8 (2:17) I want to start with that decision first. Why do you think it was framed from John Galliano and not the Met Gala? We've said the Met Gala like twice. Speaker 2 (2:31) I was going to pick you up Speaker 8 (2:32) on that. It's actually the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So the official statement was from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and John Galliano. Speaker 7 (2:40) Yes. I would suspect that John Galliano's camp really wanted this quote to come from him because I suspect this decision has been made by John. There was a New York Times article that, Rae, you spoke to earlier this morning when we were like, the Slack channel was... Our speculation at this point is that that pressure has come from donors who are unhappy about this collaboration. And a little bit of backstory was this exhibition was announced months ago. And I suspect as we've inched closer towards May 2027, that pressure... has continued to mount. For Speaker 8 (3:10) those of you who are listening and maybe don't understand what initially took place. So John Galliano had committed anti-Semitic slurs towards Jewish people in a public bar. And I believe there was also racial slurs towards the Asian community. So that garnered a lot of attention, a lot of criticism. He did apologize for it at the time. And it has popped up. every now and then when his name has been in the headlines. So yes, this happened 15 years ago, but it has resurfaced and it is the main reason why the Met Gala and John Galliano have parted ways at this point. So... Galliano did apologise for the incident at the time and he also attributed his rant to an addiction to drug and alcohol. He apologised for his remarks. He entered rehab and went on to study with Rabbi Barry Marcus in London. He also met with Abraham Foxman, the former National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, to learn about Judaism, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. So he has taken accountability for what happened 15 years ago and been on a pretty vigorous journey to do better and to, you know, repair his public image. Speaker 7 (4:08) Yeah, and he does in this quote suggest that he wants to leave the Met out of this discussion about whether he deserves to be forgiven or not. 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. I also recognise and respect that an exhibition honouring my work would be painful to some. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who have guided, supported and accompanied me throughout these 15 years of sobriety and recovery from alcoholism and addiction. Speaker 8 (4:35) I want you to read as well, Mads, the quote that Anna Speaker 7 (4:37) Wynne Yeah, it was really interesting. The one thing that puts a big asterisk on all of this for me before we kind of round out this discussion is that I don't think Anna Wintour is someone who is flippant with her words. So Anna Wintour said, John's decision to ask the museum to postpone the exhibition devoted to his work is very courageous and a measure of the man he is. Now... Do you think the use of the word postpone was a very deliberate one? Speaker 8 (5:03) Incredibly deliberate. I do think it is a no right now. but it might be something that they explore or potentially look at revisiting in the future. Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:12) Agreed. Speaker 7 (5:13) Another interesting tidbit is that Anna Wintour chose to end that Jonathan Anderson is a big lover of John Galliano in the final quote that she issued. Speaker 2 (5:22) Oh, I didn't see that. And Speaker 7 (5:23) I thought that was a really interesting move because I would say Jonathan Anderson alongside Matthew Blasey are probably the two biggest names in couture fashion right now. Speaker 4 (5:32) And Speaker 7 (5:32) I thought this was a nod of going, here is a young designer who would... admires John Galliano. And I think that was very deliberate. Speaker 8 (5:40) Yeah. I also think John Galliano was most renowned and famous for his work at Dior. Yeah. And when this incident took place, I believe he was still at Dior. He was stood down. He lost his position. He lost his position. So the center point for me is the connection to Dior. I mean, we could literally nitpick the PR statements, but I do agree with you, Mads. The word postpone is very intentional, particularly from Speaker 4 (6:00) Anna Wintour. There's not a lot she's flipped on. Speaker 8 (6:02) All right, today, first we're Speaker 4 (6:03) going Speaker 8 (6:03) to be discussing if Australia is in a fashion crisis, then those all for Mimi job applications. I'm pretty sure they're in absolutely everyone's feeds, completely inundating TikTok, but that will be right after a word from today's sponsor. Speaker 6 (6:16) As women, we spend so much time juggling work, life and everything in between. But looking after our health shouldn't be something we push to the bottom of the list. That's the thinking behind Swiss's latest campaign, Hysteria, a movement encouraging women to put their health front and centre, Speaker 7 (6:32) speaking openly about their experiences to help make women's health less easy to ignore. Because Speaker 6 (6:37) whether it's period pain, PMS, perimenopause or vaginal health, there's so much value in feeling comfortable enough to talk about what's going on with our bodies and knowing that you're definitely not the only one experiencing it. Women's health has always been an important area of focus for Swiss with a range of science-backed supplements designed to support women through every stage of life. So consider this your sign to start the conversation. Head to wearehysterical.com.au to learn more and check out Swiss's new range of women's health supplements if you're looking for a little extra support. Thank you so much to Swiss for making this episode of Stylish possible. Speaker 8 (7:14) So recently we saw a TikToker, Amber Matthews, weigh in that we've lost our sense of personal style. Now, when we say we. We mean us Aussies, Australians, for those. We do have Speaker 2 (7:25) a Speaker 8 (7:25) lot of international listeners, I should say, so I don't want to offend anyone. No, no, no, no. We're talking about the Aussies in the room. Okay, so it's very much an us issue. And Amber really goes deep on explaining why she thinks this is the case. So she talks a lot about how copycat culture, dupe culture is really destroying individualism. Speaker 2 (7:43) Interestingly, she used that example as well of the white fox, Annalise, that we actually did like an entire segment on when that first happened. Yeah. Speaker 8 (7:50) So the dress, which was basically a direct copy from a Melbourne designer, and it just completely kicked off the whole argument around dupe culture. She's made multiple videos. We're going to play a snippet of one of them. Speaker 5 (8:00) Australian fashion right now is simply just people flexing if they can afford the expensive version or if they have the dupe. I am so sick of the most exciting thing happening in Australian fashion right now is Kmart doing something for $20 that someone else did for $100. And this white fox dress, the Annalise Brownlow dress, it started it all. And I spoke about this when that happened because I feel like that was a test. I feel like that was testing the waters of how people would receive it. A lot of people said, well, we can't afford the expensive version. And not many people seem to understand that couture and expensive pieces aren't meant to be affordable. Annalise wasn't wearing this to go down to the Burley Path. She was wearing it for the Brownlow, but I feel like that moment opened the floodgates that basically anything can be duped and everything should be duped. And if there is something that is trending, dupe it. Shout out to the Burley Path. I know, Speaker 8 (8:45) I know. I literally had a little chuckle off mic there with the Burley Path reference. Speaker 8 (8:51) So there is also a piece in The Guardian that I want to reference because this doubles down on this idea that trends are really taking over, dupe culture is taking over. So it's titled, Have I Been Influenced or Is This Actually Me? How Personal Taste Fell Out of Fashion. And we're going to reference this article throughout our discussion. But it's also come about on TikTok. Other TikTokers are contributing to the conversation. We had a TikToker named Beck who said that the fashion crisis she believes is a result of tall poppy syndrome. I think when you look at all of these things together, it does point to this really interesting question. of do we think people and let's say Aussies, we've lost our individuality. I do agree that there's not a lot Speaker 2 (9:27) of diversity in what we wear. But I also think there's like decades worth of that where we all follow trends and we're all wearing similar things, you know, even looking back to like the 1920s where something is in fashion and we're all kind of wearing the same thing. But in terms of what's available to us, I do think that's definitely