What was the theme of the 2018 Met Gala celebrating fashion and Catholic imagery?

The 2018 Met Gala theme was “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.”

The theme came from the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition of the same name, which examined connections between Roman Catholicism and fashion. It included religious garments loaned from the Vatican, as well as clothing and accessories from designers influenced by Catholic symbols, imagery, and traditions.

The exhibition ran at the Met in New York from May 10 through October 8, 2018. The gala’s dress code encouraged guests to interpret the theme through religious references, producing looks inspired by papal clothing, angels, stained glass, crosses, and ecclesiastical robes.

The event is sometimes shortened in casual coverage to “Heavenly Bodies,” but the full exhibition and gala theme included the phrase “Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” It should also be distinguished from the 2019 theme “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” which explored exaggerated and deliberately artificial style.