White Vestments on a Red Carpet

The Met is currently hosting the exhibit Heavenly Bodies:Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. The extensive project is being hosting over three galleries, look at the influences of medieval art in fashion and “fashion's ongoing engagement with the devotional practices and traditions of Catholicism.” It includes the influences that developed religious habits and vestments and in turn, how religious wear influenced secular design. The Vatican donated several items, including papal robes from the Sistine Chapel sacristy. It sounds like a wonderful exhibit, and I’m pretty bummed that I can’t hop up to New York to see it.

Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination was also the theme for this year’s Met Gala. I braced myself for some sacrilegious red carpet outfits, because asking celebrities to use Catholicism as their fashion theme seemed to be asking them to be as provocative as possible. And while there were a few cringy designs and some that tried to be edgy, most of the outfits sticking to the theme were quite beautiful and respectful. There was a lot of play on gold-and-ruby Catholic monarchs, a lot of conservative black, a lot of halo headpieces. Some were understated with a cross necklace; some had seven swords stuck in their chest. All in all, I enjoyed looking at the photos.

Not everyone felt the same way. A lot of Catholics on social media hated the Met Gala theme, claiming that it was just a bunch of non-religious celebrities mocking Catholicism. They said evening’s intent was to blaspheme the Church. There were a lot of cries of cultural appropriation.

First, it was not cultural appropriation, at least in the way most people use that phrase. Cultural appropriation punches down. It’s a dominant culture taking from a dominated culture. And while it can be argued that religious faith is waning in the West, the styles at the gala mostly harkened to medieval Europe, when the Church was the biggest player in the game. Also, the “culture” gave consent: the Vatican worked closely with the curators of the exhibit from which the gala took its theme and Cardinal Dolan attended the gala.

Second, I think it was good that religion was on public display for a night, even if the message was hit and miss. People were talking miters and vestments and Joan of Arc and Our Lady of Sorrows. Tracie Ellis Ross wore a bright pink dress and posted that it was inspired by Gaudete Sunday in Lent when the priests wear rose vestments as a sign of joy. The gala was nowhere close to turning into a revival meeting, but it did showcase religious art and openly discussed religious symbolism.

A lot of designers and celebrities have had a brush with Catholicism. Raised either nominally Catholic or in a hyper-strict family, many reject the faith—sometimes quite vocally. Rejection of religion is somehow both normal and provocative these days. Here I am bashing a faith that no one around me believes in. And yet, many are still able to notice a beauty in the Church. That’s the point of the exhibit: Catholicism is beautiful and influential. Beauty and symbolism stick with you, even if you’ve left everything else behind. Maybe instead of watching the secular world “appropriate” our art, we should focus on making, preserving, and promoting it in our own spaces.

Beauty matters. Art and fashion communicate messages that we can’t always wrap up tidily into words. It can transcend era and language. It points to virtues and truth and ultimately, God.