Medieval Europe Gallery ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art Recently, the Met Ball, which has always been a rainy person, was held in New York, and fashion and Catholic elements collided with sparks on the red carpet.

2025/06/2718:16:36 hotcomm 1273

Medieval Europe Gallery ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Recently, the Met Ball, which has always called the wind and rain, was held in New York, and fashion and Catholic elements collided with sparks on the red carpet. The exhibition that opened three days after the dance deserves our attention. The combination of traditional religious objects and designer works directly forms a dialogue between fashion and religious art.

Compared to Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City, what you are more familiar with is its abbreviation: Met Ball or Met Gala. This "Fashion Oscar" held in early May every year actually kicks off the annual exhibition of Met Clothing Academy.

Met Ball Co-Chair Rihanna

This year's red carpet theme is "Celestial Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination". On the red carpet that day, many celebrities joined hands with the world's top fashion designers to show off their stunning looks that fits religious allusions. As the most popular among all Christian sects, Catholicism has also inspired a series of extraordinary works of art, and has inspired countless designers. Can you guess what classic paintings are inspired by the costumes they are wearing?

The first is the score. Ariana Grande was wearing a dress designed by Vera Wang, and the prints of the entire skirt came from Michelangelo's "Judgment of the Doomsday". For example, Zendaya should be the best dress that night, which is exactly the same as Joan of Arc in the painting.

Ariana Grande and "Judgment of Doomsday"

Zendaya and Albert Lynch's work "Joan of Arc"

Red, black, gorgeous headdresses and complicated embroidery, and several Catholic peculiar elements can be seen everywhere on the red carpet. Every year, Met Ball pushes the exhibition attention to the highest point, and the exhibition itself has never disappointed.

Blake Lively, Modonna and Rosie Huntington Whiteley

sing singer Lana Del Rey

The man behind the "Celestial Body"?

As Met's largest clothing exhibition to date, the "Celestial Body: The Wonder of Fashion and Religion" exhibits are quite rich, covering religious wardrobe from the 18th to the early 21st century, accessories, and fashion designers' clothing designs about religion.

"Celestial Body: The Wonder of Fashion and Religion" Exhibition Site ©Style Zeitgeist

At first, the exhibition "Celestial Body" was intended to explore the influence of the traditions of the five major religions on fashion. But over time, curator Andrew Bolton realized that there was a serious imbalance between designers from Catholic traditions and designers from other beliefs, and that if you want to truly sort out the relationship between religion and clothing, you also need to start with mainstream Western religions.

《Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination》, Image Still Frame, 2018 ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art

©The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bolton was born in a Catholic family in Blackburn, England. His parents are working class, and they naturally hope that Bolton can become a lawyer or doctor in the future, which is the most promising profession in the middle class. Just as young Bolton was swaying, a VA museum recruitment form that accidentally fell out of the book changed his life.

curator Andrew Bolton

After working at VA for nine years, he moved to Met as an associate curator and became the head of the Costume Academy in 2015. Bolton, who is constantly at the forefront of international art platforms and fashion, specializes in planning themes for Met Ball and the clothing exhibition that will be opened every year.

Bolton lives in Manhattan with her boyfriend Thom Browne

Bolton is a storyteller who loves to tell the subject this year, he describes it as a "pilgrimage journey."Through the exhibition, the audience step by step into a world where fashion and Catholicism blend together, and at the same time, they can see the driving force of faith to the Renaissance.

"Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination", Image Still Frame, 2018 ©The Metropolitan Museum of Art

DolceGabanna AW13 Show Photo

Let the items tell their own stories

Because the exhibition displays fashion with Vatican religious items, the "celestial bodies" have been controversial since the beginning of planning. This includes many doubts from traditional Catholics who believe that the exhibition of work clothes of the pope and other clergy would make faith seem insignificant.

But it is undeniable that these religious clothing have a very important commonality with today's fashion: They all control visual language and rely on subtle "visual codes" to explain the complex identities behind it.

©The Metropolitan Museum of Art

A total of 150 designer works and 50 religious clothing and accessories from the Vatican are displayed in the exhibition hall. Among them, the Vatican exhibits spanned three centuries, such as Pope Benedict's white silk shawl and embroidery, Pope Leo XIII's steeplechase hat, and most of them have not been exhibited outside the Vatican before.

Pius IX (Pius IX) crown

In addition to this, there is another detail worth noting, that is, the design that used to be inspired by male church clothing is now mostly used in women's clothing. The gender transformation contained in it is like a relationship between tradition and modernity.

Bolton said: "Curlers are prone to impose their ideas on the exhibits. I do not agree with this passive state because the objects have the ability to tell stories on their own." The exhibition allows the audience to see how religion and art influence fashion, and more importantly, let these wonderful religious and clothing elements on the same platform, each continuing to write about their greater influence in the future.