Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination: History and Background

Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination was the 2018 high fashion art exhibition of the Anna Wintour Costume Center, a wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) which houses the collection of the Costume Institute.

The exhibition was held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 10 to October 8, 2018. 1,659,647 people viewed the exhibit, making it the most visited exhibition in the museum's history. The exhibition featured approximately 40 ecclesiastical works from the Sistine Chapel, which were never seen outside the Vatican, surpassing the museum's previous exhibition in 1983 entitled "The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art." The exhibition also featured more than 150 ensembles of secular clothing from the 20th century. The dress code for the annual Met Gala held on May 7, 2018, was "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" to highlight the influence of religion and liturgical vestments on fashion from designers such as Donatella Versace, and Cristóbal Balenciaga.

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