The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala Monday night, what with its theme, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” was blatantly hypocritical — political correctness was thrown to the wind on just this evening — to the point of near-blasphemy, and proudly so.
Attendees of the Met Gala dressed in outfit after outfit that reflected the fashion Catholic worshipers, monks, the pope, and others would wear to formally attend mass or other aspects of Catholicism. Celebrities invoked centuriesold attire and modern-day wardrobes. Some were stunning and gorgeous, others were eyebrow-raising and even odd.
she truly was the queen of this years met gala pic.twitter.com/EOC3cvF1Tu
— jasmin (@holydakotamayi) May 8, 2018
CHADWICK TAKING US TO CHURCH ??#MetGala pic.twitter.com/KMCjBaNfkp
— Complex Pop Culture (@ComplexPop) May 7, 2018
.@rihanna, #MetGala Co-Chair, has arrived on the red carpet. #MetHeavenlyBodies pic.twitter.com/Gi8QupIpoM
— The Met (@metmuseum) May 7, 2018
.@sarahjessicaparker arrives looking iconic and dressed to the #MetHeavenlyBodies theme on the #MetGala carpet. #SarahJessicaParker pic.twitter.com/ZlFRPJ0bkn
— The Met (@metmuseum) May 7, 2018
Complete with her own set of wings, @katyperry gets comfortable on the #MetGala carpet. #MetHeavenlyBodies #KatyPerry pic.twitter.com/DPjdslLgUM
— The Met (@metmuseum) May 7, 2018
On the one hand, the Met Gala has always been about fashion — the more over-the-top, the better. This year, Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge of the theme, observed, “In the Medieval Galleries, fashions reference the hierarchy and gendered distinctions of the Roman Catholic Church through a cast of Fellini-esque religious characters that are immediately identifiable by their dress.”
While there no doubt is a connection between art and religion, specifically the way Catholicism may have informed fashion over the centuries and vice versa, for dedicated, sincere Catholics this was undoubtedly a way to honor God and their faith, not to parade their fashion choices above their religion.
Still, origins aside, the Met Gala itself seems to have come across more blasphemous than even the curator may have intended. Rihanna looked like a Barbados-born, female pope, and Sarah Jessica Parker wasn’t too far behind. While these choices may have seemed clever to designers, can anyone imagine a gala honoring Jews, Muslims, Mennonites, or Baptists? I’ll grant it, the latter isn’t probably nearly as fashionable nor iconic, but a fashion show featuring burkas or kippahs would surely be seen as blasphemous, and likely would be.
When one considers this fashion show “honoring” Catholicism (that at least appeared on the carpet to look incredibly politically incorrect) coming from Hollywood, it’s even more mind-boggling that a woman who used to star as the lead role in “Sex in the City” wore a dress like the pope and everyone thought she was stunning.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
