Striving for Fashion: Historical Voices in the Chorus of Beauty

Abstract

Historical and cultural themes as a source of inspiration in postmodernism are a structuring factor in the organization of communication between designers and consumers. The boundaries are being gradually erased not only between different forms of art, mass and elite cultures, but also between such opposite fields of human activity as fashion and religion. The article is devoted to the semantic aspects of one of the most interesting events of the recent time–the exhibition “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” organized by the Costume Institute of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with the Vatican, which took place from May to October 2018. In this regard, the voices of authors from various fields are explored within the realm of fashion and religion, before the psychological interpretation is focused on the historical dimensions of the specific relationship of Catholicism and ceremonial costumes. Concludingly, this analysis provides evidence of the century long tradition of Catholic play with ornaments and fashion as a mimetic means for socially distancing the divine from the profane.