Take me to the Catholic Church

It took curator Andrew Bolton several years to convince the Vatican to give its blessing to Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, the blockbuster show at the Metropolitan Museum in New York that explores divine inspiration in fashion. One imagines Rome's reluctance stemmed from concern that the exhibition – and particularly the opening night gala, which has become known for its outrageous outfits would trivialise religious imagery.It needn't have worried. Fashion takes clothes very, very seriously. In a world in which dressing up matters and sartorial symbolism carries a very real weight, the Met Gala is the most important night of the year.Even when it looks absurd to outsiders – remember the omelette dress of 2015? – the fashion seen on the Met Gala red carpet has been considered and planned with the solemnity of a papal conclave. In their Manhattan hotel rooms, celebrities dress for this event with a level of meticulous ceremony which would befit a Sunday at St Peters.This year's dress code was a challenge. To succeed on this red carpet required honouring the theme of Catholicism in fashion without being seen to make fun of it. What is special about the Met red carpet – by comparison, for instance, with Cannes – is that you can't win it just by looking good. A supermodel can wear a tight dress and high heels and sail through almost every other public occasion with flying colours, but that look is a fast track to being completely ignored at the Met. You have to dig deep for this night, because Met Gala triumph requires not just beauty but bravery and a leap of faith. The Vatican would surely approve.The transactional business of fashion is a multimillion-pound industry precisely because it taps into powerful emotions and desires. Fashion deliberately blurs the boundaries between things that you have the power to change and the things you don't. Religious imagery has long employed the same porous boundaries, conjuring the invisible into life. The word halo an accessory seen last night on Solange Knowles in Iris Van Herpen and Lily Collins in Givenchy, among others means glory. And the aesthetic of papal garments has roots in worldly power, as well as spiritual. When the Emperor Constantine moved his capital east to Constantinople and allowed the pontiffs to assume control the old capital, Rome, they incorporated some of the clothing and accessories worn by the Roman emperors who had ruled before them, the better to legitimise their power in the eyes of the people of Rome.Best red-carpet quote of the night, though, goes to the actor Lena Waithe, who wore a rainbow flag cape to spotlight the Catholic Church's complicated relationship with the LGBTQ community. “The theme to me is, like, being you,” she told the New York Times on the red carpet. “You were made in God's image, right?”The Guardian

Take me to the Catholic Church

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-03

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Take me to the Catholic Church

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Namibian Sun 2025-04-03

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