Inside Met Gala 2018: Pictures, Cocktails, and Performances

For an industry where “worship” usually brings to mind loyal front row inhabitants at fashion shows or the hordes of adoring fans who flock to a given celebrity, on the first Monday in May, the 2018 Costume Institute gala took its guests to church. (The dress code? “Sunday best.”)

This year’s exhibition, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” is the museum’s largest and most ambitious effort yet, spanning 25 galleries and 60,000 square feet (including at The Met Cloisters, where elements from French monasteries have been rebuilt), with an organizing principle that the show’s chief curator, Andrew Bolton, said was “intended to evoke both the concept and the experience of a religious pilgrimage.” Entrants to the gala on Monday scaled the fashion industry’s most iconic red carpet to meet the evening’s hosts: Anna Wintour, Donatella Versace, Rihanna, and Amal Clooney, along with cochairs Christine and Stephen Schwarzman, and from there began a journey that wound through the Byzantine and medieval art galleries (where designs by the likes of Christian Lacroix, John Galliano, Versace, and Thierry Mugler sat in conversation with the museum’s religious artworks), passing under a balcony filled with mannequins wearing choral robes designed by Cristóbal Balenciaga, and into the Anna Wintour Costume Center, to find the culmination of years of negotiations: gleaming treasures on loan from the Sistine Chapel sacristy, many of which have never been seen outside the Vatican, awaiting fashion’s finest pilgrims. At the cocktail hour in the Temple of Dendur, Lynda Carter—the original Wonder Woman—was on hand, as were Bella Hadid, SZA, Mitt Romney, and Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen. 2 Chainz was flush with his recent engagement—he had popped the question on the red carpet outside—while Chadwick Boseman was resplendent in a cream-color bejeweled caped ensemble, and Rita Ora coupled her custom Prada gown with a black headpiece she made herself. Jaden Smith, who last year brought his severed dreadlocks to the red carpet, this year brought his gold record instead; Katy Perry navigated the phalanx of paparazzi and the exhibition in an enormous pair of feathered wings, though she removed them for the evening’s first of two surprise musical events—a concert by the Sistine Chapel Choir, introduced by Clooney and His Eminence, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, followed a few hours later by an evening-capping performance by Madonna (and some 40-odd dancers dressed as Benedectine monks), who sang "Like a Prayer" and "Hallelujah" as she danced down the stairs of the museum's great hall.

“The Catholic imagination is rooted in and sustained by artistic practice, and fashion’s embrace of sacred images, objects, and customs continues the ever-evolving relationship between art and religion,” the Met’s president and CEO, Daniel H. Weiss, said on Monday morning, and the exhibition includes designs by Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester, Lanvin, Viktor & Rolf, Thom Browne, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino, Riccardo Tisci, Madame Grès, Thierry Mugler, Roberto Capucci, Dolce & Gabbana, A.F. Vandevorst, and Rodarte, several of whose originators were on hand for the gala. They were joined by some first-time guests: “You may be asking, ‘Whats the church doing here? Why is the church part of this?’ ” Dolan said on Monday. “It’s because the church and the catholic imagination, the theme of this exhibit, are all about three things: truth, goodness, and beauty. That’s why we have great schools and universities, to teach the truth; that’s why we love and serve the poor, to do good; and that’s why we’re into things such as art, poetry, music, literature, and yes, even fashion—to thank God for the gift of beauty.”

“Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” is on view May 10–October 8, 2018.

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