Who Will Wear Athleisure to the Next Met Gala?

After the Met canceled the Costume Institute exhibit that was to examine the work of John Galliano, owing to backlash over the designer’s antisemitic and anti-Asian comments, people became extra curious about what the next show might be. Could it pay tribute to one of the fashion icons who died in the past year, such as Bob Mackie? No, we learned today. In fact, the next exhibit couldn’t be less aligned with the Sultan of Sequins. The title of the spring show will be “extraOrdinary: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday.” “Love jeans and T-shirts?” Vogue asked in the announcement. “This one’s for you.” Glamour, begone.

The exhibit will focus on two dimensions of the everyday. One will be about how designers elevate everyday items, like jeans or T-shirts. The other will be the elevation of everyday objects and materials into fashion, like paper or metal. “I didn’t have a plan B,” curator Andrew Bolton told Vogue. “It was really important to come up with an exhibition that wasn’t just a masterwork show or something that we could do a little bit more easily. I wanted it to be as challenging and as provocative and as beautiful as a John show would have been.” He added, “That was really important to me: to come up with an idea that wasn’t a substitute. And it had to have some sort of contemporary resonance.”

The subject will also be the theme for the next Met Gala, to be held on May 3. The question is, What could celebrities wear that aligns with an intentionally “ordinary” theme? Zac Posen’s work for Gap might be an example — he has taken classic Gap looks and heightened them for the red carpet with GapStudio. But what is everybody else going to wear? Maybe it’s time for Lululemon and Uniqlo to get a table.