The Met board approved it. Anna Wintour is wearing it.
That’s the whole lesson, and it’s worth a minute of your time even if you couldn’t care less about fashion.
Quick recap, per NPR: in late July the Met announced a spring Costume Institute show honoring John Galliano, the designer whose 2010–2011 antisemitic remarks are a matter of public record. Jewish leaders objected. The ADL met with museum leadership. On August 31, Galliano withdrew. On September 1, the Met cancelled. Wintour called his withdrawal “very courageous.”
And now the knives are out for her. Not for the board. Not for the museum director. For the woman whose name is on the front of the decision.
Her defenders are saying, correctly, that a whole roomful of people signed off on this. It was years of planning. A team effort.
Here’s the part nobody tells you until it happens to you: reputation is a shared asset with an unshared downside.
Everyone gets a piece of the credit. One person gets all of the fall.
I’ve spent 40 years in and around media, and I have enormous regard for Anna Wintour. She reportedly backed Galliano because she believes in second chances. That is a virtue. It is also not a shield. The public doesn’t grade on intent. It grades on whose name it remembers.
So before you champion something at your company, your foundation, your family business, ask one question: if this goes sideways, who is standing alone?
If the answer is “me,” make sure you’d still make the call.
Four decades of extraordinary work don’t disappear over one exhibit. But they do get a new first paragraph. Design your reputation accordingly.