Good vs. Evil in the Garden of Fashion

Finally posting more about "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination," at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through Monday, October 8 [Columbus Day]. This time-in-a-bottle, gilded-lily, often haunting exhibit is in three places, not unlike the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The Anna Wintour Costume Center holds the radiant gold pope adornments; the museum's first floor, near the permanent Medieval and Byzantine Art Gallery, has couture designer pieces; and at the Met Cloisters, a subway, bus, car or taxi ride away from the graceful mother ship, you can see imports from French monasteries. [My sister and I did not get to the Cloisters, not enough time.]

So much to say. So.much.to.say. #somuchtosay

I am a dyed-in-the-wool, baptized-in-the-font Catholic....my faith runs deep. Down to the toes of the itchy navy blue cabled knee socks I wore to Saint Mary's School in Dumont, New Jersey, a working-class town in Bergen County. It touches the tiny silver beads on the rosaries my Italian immigrant grandmother, Rosie, brought back from Rome for all four of her granddaughters--Lin, Sis, Judi and me. Our beads were blessed by the Pope on one of Rosie's pilgrimages [this one in the late 1960s] to the Vatican with her church group.

I was shaken by the exhibit. In awe. Thunderstruck. Disturbed.

Dead Popes Society
We started downstairs, though I see now that the brochure says the pilgrimage should begin on the first floor. Below ground, so rich, so opulent. Hidden. Copes [large open cloaks] so heavy with golden thread that we could not fathom carrying them on our shoulders. A mitre, the tall hat, encrusted with jewels. A stunning amethyst cross, purple and polished. A crucifix with a secret compartment that held a relic--a tiny bone from a dead pope. Relics were occasionally on loan to Saint Mary's when we were girls, too, though they were from saints, not popes.

We also saw shoes worn by Pope John Paul II. And crowns, rings, clasps and an incredibly ornate monstrance, the gold vessel in which the Blessed Sacrament is displayed for genuflection [kneeling, praying, adoring]. Even soft cloth slippers dotted with precious jewels.

It was a Tiffany & Co-worthy treasure trove of rubies, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds, shining, in vain, even after centuries.

All of this, of course, in stark juxtaposition to two deep troubles. One, many of the Italian and French peasants who gave money to the church were poor, yet their male leader was draped in gold, almost obscenely so. And two, the Catholic Church is under scrutiny now for dark abuse of innocent children, and for covering it up and relocating the priests/pastors to other parish assignments, only to have the crimes occur again. The recent Grand Jury report from Pennsylvania was horrifying. Now New York and New Jersey are under the scope, and rightly so. How many generations of devout parents have sent their freshly scrubbed altar boys into the wrong hands? The PA report told of a priest who abused several sisters in one family and another who went to the hospital after a girl had her tonsils out and abused her there.

It is hideous. Yet here, here was beauty. It really was a beautiful collection. Golden and regal and really, fashion in the highest form. Church music played all around us.

Everything in the Costume Center was on loan from the Vatican.

Blessed-Mother Blue and Creepy Black Nunwear

Photo I took last Thursday at the Met. I've been thinking about the exhibit ever since.

For some reason, priests and nuns scared me. They held the secrets, and the power. I got along with them well enough, but those long black, front-button cassocks the priests wore....the gray-blue habit Sister Agnes had, gray-blue like her eyes behind rimless glasses. Lips without lipstick, lashes naked. No legs or ankles showing. So mysterious. Utilitarian. Different. Plain. Foreign to my little-girl world. Why, and what, were they hiding?

Even the Beatles were scared:

Friday night arrives without a suitcase
Sunday morning creeping like a nun
Monday's child has learned to tie his bootlace
See how they run  
                          --"Lady Madonna" lyrics

I admired my mother's gold charm bracelet and perfume bottles. I begged her to wear the sleeveless silver dress with a faux jewel neckline. I wanted her to be pretty.

Sis, whose name is MaryAnne, probably after the Blessed Virgin Mary, was gifted with a statue of her. She was maybe a foot tall, in blue robes, her feet conquering the Devil, the serpent. The statue was on a shelf in the bedroom we shared.

At Saint Mary's, every bride had a separate bouquet to put at the feet of the slender, towering white Virgin Mary statue in her own alcove on the altar.

But here at the Met, wow. I was blown away by the robes and gowns inspired by angels and the Blessed Mother. So ethereal, so feminine and breathtaking in their folds and frills. Now Mary wasn't just Jesus's mother on earth--her gentle style was powerful enough to bring about a whole league of copycat celestial blue confections.

The lineup of black clothing...architectural Dolce & Gabbana shapes inspired by the straight lines of the cross, by hoods and stark habits. The line of gold Versace dresses....I can't capture it all. The Fellini film that featured a fashion show with a priest in a lacy vestment.....that felt a little sacrilegious to me. It just struck a chord.

If you have time, you have to go before Heavenly Bodies leaves. The exhibit design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro is unforgettable. There is even a Heavenly Bodies store. My favorite merchandise was stashed in the very back--large, rich and glittery eye shadow palettes, $125, and sparkly angel-white lip gloss in a tube with a sponge-tip wand, $28, by makeup maven Pat McGrath. The gloss isn't sticky and the wand is perfectly designed, a gift from heaven. My practical Sis, waiting in the wings, indulged my shopping but did say, You don't buy makeup in a museum! But if it's Pat McGrath, you do*.

oh.my.god.

#MetHeavenlyBodies

Pope wear.

*I could not afford the palette, but still regret it. The colors/pigments were so lovely. I did buy the gloss.