Super Bowl of fashion best left unpoliticized

The 2018 Met Gala is set for May 7 and the theme this year is Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. Vogue magazine reported that the theme was curated to 'create a dialogue between fashion and the masterworks of religious art in the museum's holdings (Metropolitan Museum of Art).'

For those who aren't familiar with the Met Gala or Met Ball, it's an annual fundraising gala celebrating The Costume Institute's new exhibition on a changing theme. It has been called the Oscars of fashion, or you'd refer to it as the "Super Bowl of fashion" if you're Andre Leon Talley, the contributing editor at Vogue magazine.

In a Q&A this month, Talley was asked who had the best Met Gala red carpet dress of all time. He answered, "Rihanna's yellow Guo Pei cape edged in fur, with trainbearers, from 2015." Rihanna just so happens to be one of the honorary chairs this year, alongside Donatella Versace and Amal Clooney.

Some favorites of my own from the Met Ball archives are Bianca Jagger in 1981, theme: The 18th Century Woman; Donatella Versace in 1996, theme: Haute Couture; and Mary Kate-Olsen in 2007, theme: Poiret — King of Fashion.

This year's event may have people sitting at the edge of their seats in anticipation of how celebrities will interpret the theme in their red carpet style. The first and most obvious predictions of inspired looks will be from the Pope, lots of crosses and embroidery. Some may be a bit more subtle in dress and instead pay homage to the Catholic theme by simply wearing reds, whites and gold.

By now celebrities have been matched to their designers and so we will just have to wait and see who's wearing what and how daring the looks will be. Let's just hope the politics of the event don’t overshadow the fun and art of the fashion.

D’Nieka Hartsfield writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Email her at [email protected] or find her Facebook.