They’re all displayed separately in the Costume Institute’s subterranean quarters, either for curatorial or anti-sacrilegious reasons -or both. For older pieces, look to the 40 ecclesiastical garments and objects on loan from the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel sacristy: bejeweled mitres, capes and chasubles intricately embroidered with gold and silver threads, and other sumptuous pieces. Many of them were raised as Catholics, and they specifically gave religious names to and cited religious influences for their collections. The clothing all dates back no farther than the 20th century and, aside from a little Balenciaga here and a little Claire McCardell there, is mostly the work of contemporary designers. The exhibit extends a long way physically, if not historically. Two mannequins, clad in Valentino black-caped ensembles stand on pedestals in an interior courtyard of a cloister, looking like statues -specifically, the garbed figurines that often figure in Catholic pageants and parades. A bride dressed by the House of Dior, with a wimple-like veil, approaches an actual altar in the Langdon Chapel. The effect of -or as The Met materials put it, the “dialogue between” -fashion and art packs even more of a punch at The Cloisters, with its all-encompassing ecclesiastical milieu. Mounted in front of an arched doorway, a caped angel in a white chiffon, blue crystals-studded headdress stretches her caped arms benignly over all.
A row of ladies in black-and-white, habit-like dresses, eyelids demurely lowered, stand like nuns in a processional. Clad in a white Jean Paul Gaultier dress, a mannequin lies in a case on the ground, like a tomb effigy. Image: ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art.įor this is an exhibit in which the clothes are not tucked behind glass, but intermingled with the art and antiques, not unlike what The Met did with its “Dangerous Liaisons” 2004 show, which displayed French 18th-century costumes within French period-furniture rooms -but on a more elaborate, innovative scale. In fact, this devotee fears she may have missed a display or two. Touring the entire exhibit is like embarking on “a real pilgrimage,” the museum’s President and CEO Daniel Weiss jokes. It’s a sprawling show, literally -encompassing 65,000 square feet and 25 galleries, including The Cloisters (the museum’s uptown branch dedicated to medieval art, housed in reconstituted European chapels and cloisters) and parts of the Lehman Wing, the Costume Center, and the medieval and Byzantine art galleries at The Met itself. Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination reflects the influence of religious art, ceremony, and imagery on clothing design.
Those who worship at the altar of fashion will be in seventh heaven at The Metropolitan Museum’s spring costume exhibit.
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