The theme and the hosts for the 2018 Met Gala have finally been announced, confirming the whispers from earlier this year that fashion’s annual prom would be about fashion and religion.
Vogue reports that the theme is “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” Get ready for a lot of Dolce & Gabbana! Prepare your heavenly body to see Katy Perry dressed as La Virgen! Get ready to watch a bunch of celebrities drape themselves in rosaries and Pope hats. The better news here is that Rihanna, Amal Clooney and Donatella Versace will be hosting the event—three women who will likely handle this theme with all the grace and dignity they can muster.
Rihanna has done her homework every single year and showed up on that red carpet wearing something appropriate and truly stunning every time. Donatella Versace is Donatella Versace; one assumes that considering fashion and the “Catholic imagination” is what she does every day, so I’m not worried. And Amal? She’s fine. She’ll handle it. She’ll be fine.
The accompanying exhibit to the Gala will feature a lot of fancy ecclesiastical garments, including “the papal garb on loan from the Sistine Chapel sacristy, many of which have never been seen outside the Vatican.” Constume Institute curator Andrew Bolton intends to show how “material Christianity” has influenced the aforementioned “Catholic imagination,” probably by dragging a bunch of gilded-ass illuminations up from the basement and placing them in vitrines next to Galliano’s fall 2000 collection for Christian Dior.
Fashion’s prom night is May 7, 2018, so everyone famous has ample time to do the reading.
