Which 2006 Met Gala exhibition explored British fashion through “AngloMania”?

The 2006 Met Gala exhibition was titled “AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion.” It examined how British designers used, challenged, and reinvented national traditions in clothing.

The exhibition placed historical references beside modern fashion, emphasizing the tension between convention and rebellion. British identity in fashion can involve tailoring, uniforms, royal imagery, country dress, punk, and subcultural style, and the presentation treated those elements as material for reinterpretation rather than as one fixed look.

The title’s wordplay joined “Anglo” with “mania,” signaling both national identity and an energetic, sometimes exaggerated fascination with British style. It was not simply a survey of British designers arranged chronologically.

The exhibition is also easy to confuse with later Met presentations about European fashion or American fashion. Its defining subject was the relationship between British tradition and fashion’s ability to transgress it.