5 Living Designers Who Deserve a Met Retrospective Besides John Galliano

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Only a handful of designers have ever been honored with Met Gala exhibitions exclusively devoted to their work: Cristóbal Balenciaga (1973), Yves Saint Laurent (1983), Paul Poiret (2007),  Alexander McQueen (2011), Charles James (2014), Rei Kawakubo (2017), and Karl Lagerfeld (2023), as well as Miuccia Prada and Elsa Schiaparelli, who were the subject of a shared exhibition in 2012: Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations. Of those designers, only three were alive at the time of their exhibitions; Saint Laurent, Kawakubo, and Prada. And, until this week, it looked like John Galliano was fixing to joint their rarefied ranks in 2027. That is until backlash over the announcement of an exhibition honoring a man convicted of a hate crime in France for racist and antisemitic remarks reached a volume that was impossible for even Anna Wintour and the Met to ignore. That and the fact that, according to The New York Times, many of the museum’s top donors were threatening to pull their gifts.

So Galliano is out. That much is clear. But who is in? The next Met Gala and accompanying show are only eight months away. That’s not a lot of time for head curator Andrew Bolton and Mme. Wintour to pull together a whole new show from scratch. Maybe they will just try to beef up whatever was planned to go up after the ill-conceived Galliano retrospective, though that feels like it would be an exercise doomed to failure by poor attendance.

Of course if they still want to do a show devoted to the output of a single designer, we’ve got some ideas.

1. Marc Jacobs

There is no denying the influence that Jacobs’ designs have had on fashion and culture over the span of his nearly 40-year career. From his headline-stealing grunge collection for Perry Ellis in 1992, to launching Louis Vuitton women’s wear in 1997 and the pioneering work he did in the realm of artist/fashion collaborations during his 16 years there, to his own eponymous brand and the creation of his massively successful diffusion brand, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Jacobs has been at the forefront of not just American fashion but the entire fashion industry for most of his life. Given that Jacobs spent so long at Louis Vuitton, LVMH seems like a shoe-in as a major sponsor, even if they did just sell his namesake brand to WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group in a $925 million. Surely they could afford to give some of that money to the Met to honor him. And Wintour could probably get G-III and WHP to pony up as well, after all, it would be great publicity for their new acquisition. And if the Met really wanted to make a mint, they could have Jacobs himself design the merch. People would go absolutely gaga for that.

(Louis Vuitton)

(Marc Jacobs)

2. Tom Ford

People are obsessed with Tom Ford-era Gucci these days. And with good reason. The man revived a dying leather goods brand turning it into a true fashion powerhouse that defined late-’90s and early-’00s sex appeal. His relatively brief stint at (Yves) Saint Laurent, following the perhaps somewhat forced retirement of Saint Laurent himself, was incredibly creatively fruitful, as were his years at the helm of his own eponymous brand, which was acquired by The Estée Lauder Companies in 2023 for a staggering $2.8 billion. Wintour could probably get Estée and Kering to co-sponsor the exhibition and the fashion girlies would surely approve. And then there are the designer’s films. He’s only made two so far, but they were certainly very stylish and would be an interesting counterpoint to his runway looks.

Kate Moss in an ad for Ford’s Spring 2001 Gucci Collection (Inez and Vinoodh)

Yves Saint Laurent by Tom Ford

3. Iris van Herpen

The Brooklyn Museum has an amazing Iris van Herpen exhibit up right now that runs through December 6, so there is no way the Met would consider her for a solo show at this time, but her work is certainly worthy of the honor. We’re still haunted by the memory of the pink dress with the bird heads she created that was part of the Met’s 2016 exhibition: Manus x Machina. It was easily the most breathtaking creation in a show full of truly breathtaking creations.

Iris Van Herpen Fall 2019 Couture (firstVIEW)

Iris van Herpen Spring 2020 Couture (IMAXtree)

Iris van Herpen Fall 2026 Couture

Of course, Iris van Herpen is a relatively small, independent brand, so it’s not like they could be the exhibition’s sponsor. And it seems unlikely that one of the big conglomerates would shell out to honor someone outside of their own ranks. But she is definitely worthy of the Met’s highest honor.

4. Jean Paul Gaultier

What a wild exhibition (and gala) this would be. Not only did Jean Paul Gaultier created some of the most decade-defining runway looks of the ’80s and ’90s, he also created some of the most memorable costumes in modern cinematic history for films including The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), The City of Lost Children (1995), and his sci-fi masterpiece, The Fifth Element (1997). His stint at Hermès,  from 2003 to 2010, is the best that brand has ever looked and they would be fools not to sponsor the exhibition alongside the Gaultier brand’s current owner Puig. True, Gaultier no longer works for Hermès but they could reissue some of his designs for the occasion and make a mint.

Also, the years of couture collections created under the Gaultier label by guest designers — Glenn Martens (Spring/Summer 2022), Olivier Rousteing (Fall/Winter 2022), Haider Ackermann (Spring/Summer 2023), Julien Dossena (Fall/Winter 2023), Simone Rocha (Spring/Summer 2024), etc. — would be fascinating to see mixed in among the pieces from the master’s own had that inspired them.

True, Gaultier did have an exhibition of his own at the Brooklyn Museum back in 2013, but that’s so long ago at this point that most people have probably forgotten about it anyway.

5. Eileen Fisher

Picture it: a gallery full of sort of gray sack-y things. Then another one full of black sack-y things. And another one full of beige, brown, and oatmeal sack-y things. And they could incorporate other designers too. Like Rick Owens, who, if you think about it, is really just goth Eileen Fisher. Issey Miyake – origami Eileen Fisher. Yohji Yamamoto — Japanese vagabond Eileen Fisher. True, Yamamoto and Miykake founded their brands before Fisher founded hers, but that’s an issue for Andrew Bolton to sort out. We’re just here to illuminate possibilities.

Eileen Fisher 2003

Rick Owens Fall 2015

Issey Miyake Spring 2016

Yohji Yamamoto Fall 2017 (Catwalking/Getty Images)

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