Haute takes are flying over John Galliano’s Met exit.

The British designer, 65, pulled the plug on his planned Costume Institute retrospective, “John Galliano: Horizons,” and Met Gala theme Monday — a decision he and the Metropolitan Museum of Art said they made jointly after weeks of mounting backlash.

“I do not want the debate surrounding me to place the Met in a difficult position or to distract from the remarkable work of the Costume Institute,” Galliano wrote in a statement published on Instagram. “I also recognise and respect that an exhibition honouring my work would be painful for some.”

Galliano was fired from Christian Dior in 2011 after footage surfaced of him declaring “I love Hitler” at a Paris café. A French court convicted him of a hate crime the same year for antisemitic and anti-Asian remarks made during separate incidents at the same bar.

The disgraced designer attributed the outbursts to drug and alcohol addiction, entered rehab and later studied Judaism with Rabbi Barry Marcus in London, meeting privately with Jewish leaders in the years since. His statement Monday cited “fifteen years of sobriety and recovery.”

The 2027 gala was scheduled, as it is every year, for the first Monday in May — a date that in 2027 coincides with Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. The retrospective was set to open the same evening at the Met’s Anna Wintour Costume Center.

Anna Wintour, Vogue’s global editorial director and a Met trustee, had led the charge for the exhibit. She helped land Galliano the creative director job at Maison Margiela in 2014 and said earlier this month that “there is no one more deserving of an exhibition of this scale.”

On Monday, she praised his exit through the museum, calling the decision “very courageous and a measure of the man he is.”

Inside Condé Nast, the mood was reportedly less admiring. A source told Page Six exclusively that “everybody is whispering behind Anna’s back, but nobody is saying anything to her face.”

“They’re all ‘yes-ma’aming’ her like they’ve always done,” the source said, adding that colleagues are now “mortified by how this was handled.”

Prominent Met donor Alice Tisch told The Post that Wintour “looks like she lost her judgment here” and appeared to have “fallen in love” with the designer.

“Maybe she saw him for who he is, and she believed that his work is just so great that everybody should see around all of this the same way she did,” Tisch said. “I think she looks out of touch.”

Among the thousands of comments on Galliano’s statement was an outpouring of love (and heart emojis) from many of fashion’s biggest names — including Marc Jacobs, Valentino creative director Alessandro Michele, makeup legend Pat McGrath, celebrity stylist Karla Welch, and models Carolyn Murphy, Karen Elson, Mariacarla Boscono and Natasha Poly.

Many industry insiders took to social media to make a case for grace and mourn the exhibit that won’t be.

“If we are unwilling to forgive even when someone takes responsibility, apologies and makes changes, then what incentive is there for anyone to reflect, apologize, or do better in the future?” wrote catwalker Anja Rubik. “Huge shame for all of us!”

“So disappointed that in today’s world there is no Love and forgiveness,” offered star hairstylist Garren.

Fashion photographer Gilles Bensimon said it was a “sad day” for fashion.

Veteran fashion journalist Suzy Menkes, who is Jewish, weighed in on Instagram with a meditation on artistry and ambiguity, writing that “the creative soul displays its truth. And is judged accordingly. But not always with the same vision or conclusion.”

Model and actress Hari Nef argued that the museum had already shown it can handle complicated fashion legacies. Referring to the Costume Institute’s 2012 “Impossible Conversations,” which staged an imagined dialogue between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, Nef wrote that Galliano’s legacy “is difficult to square with his past remarks, but is it really ‘impossible?’ this could have been cool and interesting!!”

The Met promised to reckon with the career and public perception fallout in their now-removed description of the planned exhibition.

Model Teddy Quinlivan, who is transgender, penned a personal tribute: “He saw me when no one else did. He loved, embraced, and celebrated me.” She added, “I stand with John Galliano forever. I’m extremely proud to not only be associated with him but to be always and forever on his team.”

Fashion illustrator Hayden Williams called the reversal “a real shame,” writing that the designer had “been doing the work to be a better person.” Designer Kelsey Randall, who identified herself as a sober alcoholic, said she read Galliano’s decision as a form of accountability: “I understand that part of making amends is to not cause further harm and I respect your decision to acknowledge that some people are not willing to accept your amends.”

Among those not willing to grant it were public officials, Jewish leaders and powerful donors to the museum — who spent weeks campaigning behind the scenes to kill the planned exhibit.

New York City Council speaker Julie Menin — the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors — told The Post she had been contacted by the Met about the project in late July, before it had been publicly announced, and warned then that she would fight it.

“It’s one thing to have work displayed by controversial artists. But it’s a choice to decide to honor and celebrate someone’s legacy, and that is where I drew the line,” she said.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that longtime Friends of the Costume Institute member Jill Kargman resigned from the patron group and art dealer Arne Glimcher warned Met CEO Max Hollein that he and his wife were “seriously reconsidering” bequests promised to the museum. The Times also reported that other donors had threatened to withdraw gifts if the exhibit went ahead.

Menin wrote to Hollein, Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton and Wintour last week urging them to drop the project, and told The Post she took her case directly to the Vogue editor on a Zoom call from City Hall. “This is a victory for the Jewish community. This is a victory for the Asian community. This is a victory for tolerance, inclusion and standing up for the right thing,” she said after news of the cancelation broke Monday.

New York Fashion Week founder Fern Mallis welcomed the reversal in her own statement to The Post. “I agree with this decision, I think they’ve all come to their senses,” she said. “It’s rewarding to see that when enough people speak their mind they can effect change.”

The Met has said it will announce a new spring 2027 exhibition and gala theme “at a later date.”