New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art announced on Thursday that its spring 2027 Costume Institute exhibition will showcase the possibilities of everyday fashion, featuring common items such as jeans, T-shirts, puffer jackets, plastic, and paper.
Titled "extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday," the exhibition will examine how fashion designers convert familiar garments, objects, and ordinary materials into unexpected creations. Through craftsmanship, structural construction, and experimentation, the show will highlight materials ranging from denim and metal to paper and plastic. Visitors will be invited to view everyday items in a new light, demonstrating how designers grant them fresh forms and meanings while retaining their original associations. The exhibition will showcase items from the Costume Institute's permanent collection alongside new acquisitions and borrowed loans.
The newly announced theme represents a dramatic shift in direction for the museum, following the cancellation of a previously planned exhibition focused on British designer John Galliano. That original retrospective was shelved after drawing strong backlash from donors and Jewish community leaders over Galliano's past anti-Semitic and racist comments, for which he has repeatedly issued apologies. Andrew Bolton, head curator of the Costume Institute, noted that the replacement exhibition had to be developed entirely from scratch.
As one of the global fashion industry's premier annual events, the Met Gala serves as the primary fundraiser for the museum's Costume Institute. Traditionally taking place on the first Monday in May, the gala brings together prominent designers, celebrities, actors, and musicians who attend in elaborate attire inspired by the exhibition's chosen theme. The red carpet broadcast garners international attention, making the fashion choices as widely discussed as the exhibition itself.
