The Metropolitan Museum of Art may have the majority of the new Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibit at its Fifth Avenue location, but you should definitely go to the Cloisters, where part of the show is also on display. With lush Fort Tryon Park all around it, the drama of clothing is heightened amongst the medieval architecture and classical music hanging in the air.
Pieces are situated all over the museum, in nearly every room, and even outside on the loggias. From the NY Times:
Where the clothing at Fifth Avenue draws on Catholicism’s rigid hierarchy and public rites, the Cloisters showcases fashion reflecting the quieter side of faith. It’s here you’ll find, in the reconstructed Spanish chapel, the show’s most famous ensemble: Balenciaga’s 1967 wedding gown, made of silk the color of ice milk and topped with an architectonic hood in place of a veil. Erroneously known as the “one-seam wedding dress,” this extraordinary garment appears to have been immaculately conceived rather than sewn. Here, too, the scenography is hardly subtle; the Balenciaga bride faces the apse as if in prayer, and speakers twitter “Ave Maria.”
We dispatched photographer Sai Mokhtari to the Cloisters to capture some of the magic, and you can click through for a preview; Mokhtari says she loved it "even more than the exhibition at the Met... the space is just so perfect for something like this."
Heavenly Bodies runs from May 10 until October 8, 2018, at the Met Fifth Avenue and Met Cloisters.
