Met Gala 2027 goes mundane: 'poetics of the everyday' theme unveiled

The Met Gala on 3 May 2027 will celebrate "extraORDINARY: fashion and the poetics of the everyday", the Costume Institute announced — a deliberately commonplace theme unveiled months after the planned John Galliano retrospective was cancelled amid backlash over the designer's past.

The dress code has not yet been announced, but it traditionally derives from the exhibition theme. According to a press release, extraORDINARY will "explore how designers rework familiar garments, everyday objects, and commonplace materials". The show takes wardrobe staples and humble materials — "from jeans, T-shirts and puffer coats to paper, plastic and metal" — and will "examine how design reveals unexpected possibilities within everyday things".

Some commentators have already joked that celebrities might swap couture "omelette dresses" and four-part red-carpet performances for jeans and a nice top. Others are asking a sharper question.

Is the Costume Institute out of touch?

Dana Thomas, author of Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, said the theme "reinforces the message that was very, very clear with the Galliano announcement that the costume institute's team is highly out of touch". She called the decision to "take such ordinary garments and then show how fashion has co-opted them and added zeros to the price tag" tone deaf.

Thomas also sees a "missed opportunity". She argues the theme would have been better spent honouring major figures from fashion and popular culture who died this year, including Dolly Parton and Bob Mackie — the designer behind the "naked" dress Cher wore to the Met Gala in 1974 and many of Parton's costumes.

"There could have been a Bob Mackie room in the Dolly Parton show," Thomas said. It would "have been easy and it would have been a beautiful homage to a woman who was a style icon and a humanitarian". Such a show, she added, would have "been enormous – it would have made the museum a ton of money, it would have gotten a lot of goodwill from the press. It would have been loved by Americans and tourists in New York alike". Instead, in her view, "fun is missing from the equation".

The platform 1Granary, known for holding the industry to account, put it bluntly: "The new Met Gala theme proves that sometimes fashion is either too controversial to exist or too boring to care about."

Malique Morris, a correspondent at the industry newsletter Line Sheet, traces his disappointment to the theme arriving "in the wake of a Galliano exhibit". "Because we're not getting that, we're going to feel robbed," he said. Galliano was found guilty of a hate crime in 2011 after a series of racist and antisemitic rants, and observers online note the new theme sits as far from his fantastical couture as possible.

Who defends the theme?

For the celebrity stylist and Vogue contributor Marian Kwei, the theme is "very clever". It seems "very simple, but it's far from it", she said. "It's actually a very interesting thing, which I think is an incredible celebration of fashion, the concept of fashion design and what designers try to do with design itself."

Morris agrees the theme could work on the red carpet as "a palette cleanser". "Instead of the constant peacocking, trying to have a viral moment … there could be a sense of just look good, make sure the clothes fit you well, tell a story and that story doesn't have to be incredibly high glam," he said.

What might guests actually wear?

Denim already has Met Gala precedent. As creative director of Gap, the American designer Zac Posen has driven many such trends, including at the Met. In 2024, Da'vine Joy Randolph wore an all-denim Posen creation. Last year, Troye Sivan wore devoré-effect jeans by Prada, and the model Bhavitha Mandava wore muslin-printed trousers made to look like blue jeans by Matthieu Blazy at Chanel.

The exhibition's focus on "recycling, upcycling and reuse" could bring designers like Sweden's Ellen Hodakova Larsson — who builds couture gowns from belt buckles and old spoons — onto the carpet. Kwei also speculates that the Dutch designer Duran Lantink, who does "incredible things with everyday materials", may fit.

Individual tickets last year cost about $100,000 — roughly twice the median US household annual income — and Anna Wintour personally oversees the guest list. Kwei warns of missteps "when it is attended by people who are not really in touch with the context of the times". It is, she said, "going to be very interesting for the red carpet".

With the dress code still unannounced, the first test of the everyday thesis arrives when invitations and styling choices surface ahead of May 2027.