Insider Feature: John Galliano Met Exhibition & Cancel Culture

The Met has announced that John Galliano will be the subject of its huge 2027 exhibition, and the reaction has split people right down the middle. Some feel it is a long overdue celebration of one of the greatest designers alive, and others do not believe he should be honoured at all, given what he said back in 2011. In this episode I wanted to sit with all of it properly rather than pick a side in a sentence, so I get into what actually happened, why it happened, and the pressure of an industry that has broken some of the most brilliant people it ever produced.But really this episode is about something bigger than one designer, because it is about cancel culture, and whether the way we practise it now is actually fair. My honest view is that we have reached a point where we no longer leave any room for redemption, where one mistake is treated as the end of a person's entire life no matter what they do afterwards, and I do not think that serves any of us well. So I talk about the difference between the people who never change and the people who genuinely do, and I make the case that Galliano, who got sober, faced the people he hurt, and spent well over a decade rebuilding himself, falls firmly into the second group.I also try to give the other side a fair hearing, because plenty of thoughtful people disagree with me, and some of them were hurt by what he said, and that matters. But by the end I land where I land, which is that his work more than merits this moment, and that a culture with no way back for anyone eventually stops being about accountability at all. You can follow Nakul on Instagram @nakullaxwww.instagram.com/nakullaxYou can email us at [email protected]