I think in a previous life I must have been a Catholic nun.I can't otherwise explain why I'm so drawn to religious imagery: brutal and beautiful, honest and cruel, bold and bloody, staid and extravagant. When I heard about this phenomenal installation at The Met, I knew I had to see it. There was no rationale except I needed to feed my creative self straight from the source. I took a red eye to La Guardia and met a friend who was on the east coast for work. We checked into our midtown hotel and immediately set out for The Cloisters, one of three locations owned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the others being Met Breuer and Met Fifth Avenue). The building is a stone fort built in the 1930s and is dedicated to medieval works - a perfect and magical setting for our first look at Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and The Catholic Imagination. This beautiful piece was the first thing I saw. Her wrists are wrapped in layers of rosaries and the garment is covered in iridescent patchwork.
Each subsequent installation was equally gasp-worthy and expertly styled. In some cases, the designers of the garments also styled the wigs and accessories.
Balenciaga:
Valentino:
Dior by John Galliano:
Alexander McQueen:
Dior by John Galliano:
Philip Treacy:
Jean Paul Gaultier:
Tom Brown:
By the time I'd wandered through the entire exhibit I was doubtful that Part 2 at The Met proper could be as amazing. Amazingly, I was wrong.
