Headpieces of the 2018 Met Gala and Their Origins
- Frenzi
- Jul 21, 2018
- 4 min read
Last May in New York, the Met Gala, one of the largest events of the year in the fashion world, was held. The Met Gala is a fundraising party held every year to congratulate the opening of a new exhibit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The party, started in 1948 by Eleanor Lambert, the memorable publicizer of the American fashion industry, grabs the eyes and ears of the world by the most influential artists of various areas that attend. The 2018 Met Gala was adorned by hosts designer Donatella Versace, barrister Amal Clooney, and singer Rihanna.
What spices the Met Gala are the dress codes that change every year to match the topic of the new exhibition. In 2017, ‘Rei Kawakubo and Comme de Garçons,’ to commemorate designer Rei Kawakubo, and in 2016, ‘Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology’ were the themes that produced two different parties with two different moods. The theme of the 2018 Met Gala was ‘Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.’
This year’s Met Gala attendees showed especially diverse dresses and suits to match the theme. Artists expressed various Catholic figures such as popes, nuns, missionaries, knights, and angles. More specifically, a myriad of designs such as homage to symbolic figures in Catholic history, decorations and details that used Catholic symbols such as crosses and roses, and fabric and patterns employing Catholic art showed up to the party. This year, headpieces of a variety of forms drew the theme up by a notch. Here, I would like to talk about what headpieces adorned the artists’ fashion to match the theme of Catholic imagination, and the origins behind such designs.
1. Catholic Art and the Halo Design
The halo was used to express the holiness of an individual by light. When talking of the halo, one would most likely be reminded of the circle of light around Jesus’s head in medieval Catholic artwork. But there is no such description of Jesus in the Bible. So when did this expression of the halo start? The halo first started to appear in Western art with Hellenism and around the times of Ancient Roman art. They had tried to express the greatness of individuals such as Helios and Apollo, the gods of the sun, and Roman emperors.
Back then, the halo was expressed as rays of light around the head, as can be seen in the picture above. Because the origin of the halo was another religion, the first Catholic art did not use the halo. A few Catholic emperors would, instead, use a circular halo, not beams, to adorn their official portraits. It is only in the mid-4th century that the Christ is painted with a halo, and in the 5th century that a few angels, and in the 6th century that the Virgin Mary and other saints are painted with halos. After that, the halo was widely used as an expression of a holy soul in the medieval ages in various forms.
This Met Gala, artist’s wearing the halo that were previously seen only in mosaics, prints, sculptures, and paintings, caught everyone’s eyes. From simple circles to cable ties, just a simple piece would the right headpiece would express the Catholic holiness.
2. Catholic and the Rose
Flowers hold special meanings in all cultural spectres. Especially in the Catholic culture that experienced the medieval ages, the rose holds many meanings and symbols. It is the symbol of the Rosary, appears in Dante’s Inferno as a flower that symbolizes the love of God, and meant the suffering of Jesus since the 12th century. The red rose also means the blood of the martyrs. But above all else, ever since Bernard of Clairvaux established the view on the Virgin Mary around the 11th and 12th century, the rose to this day represents the Virgin Mary and innocence.
In the 2018 Met Gala, the rose appeared as a symbol of the Catholic along with the cross on clothes and props. Some had rose imprints on dresses, and some held roses in their hands, but some embellished their hairdo with rose headpieces.
3. The Catholic Veil
The culture of covering hair does not belong solely to Islam history. Veils that cover women’s hair can be found even in the Catholic culture, both in the past and present. When a woman is in a public place or is praying, women would have to wear veils in the Catholic culture. The Corinthians 11 is often pointed to as the origin of such culture. The picture below is a 3rd century mural, painted some 150 years after the Corinthians was written. We can see a Catholic woman wearing a veil.
The Catholic veil culture were changed in many ways through various ages and cultures. At least up to the 18th century, women would generally have to wear veils not just when they were saying prayers, but also in their daily lives, in Europe and other nearby Catholic cultures. Some countries in Europe had married women wear veils by law, and those who did not wear veils would be seen as prostitutes or those having an affair. The veil, handed down in various cultures, can be seen in various forms even today. The Dupatta of South Asia, scarfs such as the Babushka of Eastern Europe, and hats such as fascinators and bonnets are all extensions of the Catholic veil.
At the Met Gala, variants and reinterpretations of the Catholic veil could be seen. Veils of diverse colour, shape, and material matched with gowns to catch the crowd’s eyes.
The exhibition “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” introduced by the Met Gala, is run until October 8th at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. More information about the exhibition can be found on the website below:
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/heavenly-bodies
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