Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination

Here's an article about the recent Metropolitan Museum of Art's theme for its fund-raiser. I didn't read the article because I'd already read more than enough of them about the event. The one I posted just happened to be near the top of my search for articles about the event and I decided to share it.

It seems The Met has annual themed fund-raisers and for 2018 they opted for a "Catholic" theme. This, of course, is where it gets stupid. Here's Rhianna's idea for a costume:

As you can surely tell, her getup is "...a mitre and gown inspired by Papal opulence..." See? Right there. "Papal opulence." Now, either I'm crazy or very misinformed, but I simply don't see much regarding Christianity here. Sure, clearly there's something along the lines of Catholicism going on here, but little regarding anything resembling Christianity (of course, I've said that about Catholicism in general for a long, long time).

Had it been up to me, I would've made the fund-raiser a Christian (not, specifically, Catholic) themed event and asked all the attendees to wear anything off-the-rack and, rather than purchasing new, pricey outfits, donate the money they would've spent on an outfit to a charity for the homeless, abused women, an orphanage, etc. Basically, I would've said "Don't make this about you." But who cares about the homeless or orphans when there's a photo-op to be had?