During his papacy, Benedict XVI’s fashion sense was a frequent talking point. To reflect his conservative bent, he leaned into a traditional aesthetic: ermine lined capes, and the Santa Clause-esque Camauro cap, a relic of pre-Vatican II days. But it was his shoes – a dainty pair of red slippers – that drew the most attention. The Vatican had to issue a strict reminder to help speculating worshippers stay focused on what really matters: “The Pope is not dressed by Prada, but Christ.”
It seems Christ has a flair for shoe design. And though the Vatican’s rebuff may have been charming if facetious, it was oddly prescient: Pope Benedict XVI became an unlikely fashion-forward icon. Many of the trappings of the high church have retreated from the Vatican itself with the advent of Pope Francis, but they find new life in the pages of fashion magazines and draped over the shoulders of the world’s tastemakers.
Benedict XVI was at odds with his successor’s consciously plain vestments. It is often suggested that Pope Francis’s rejection of the Catholic finery is just a material expression of his priorities and papal regime. It seems Francis understands that the church’s future, as Ross Douthat argues in the New York Times, does not lie with the vision of Benedict but instead with “the austere and the plain.”
The Catholic Church is no stranger to image problems. And reinvention might be necessary for its survival. High Catholicism and its accompanying pomp and circumstance could be destined to the graveyard of history. In Ireland, in spite of its sustained ability to reach into far corners of the state, the church’s prevalence is receding from the public realm. Migration has diversified the country’s religious profile. And the strictures of the church have been a victim of Ireland’s recent and rapid liberalisation.
A lot has changed for US women since 2016. What does that mean for Kamala Harris?
Forty years of the Dart: ‘Dealing with the public is one of the hardest things anyone can do’
Mark Francis: Acoustic Oceans review – A fascinating development in the Irish artist’s decades-spanning career
Fake phone calls, meeting pretend-presidents and being ambushed by your parents on TV: The rituals of All-Ireland week
The theocracy’s influence may be waning in an increasingly secular world, and it has long been associated with illiberalism and repression. But perhaps there is one thing even the most astute observers of Catholicism’s mercurial image could never have predicted: Catholic is back, it’s countercultural, and it’s cool.
Last week one of the Kardashians married in Portofino, Italy. The bride’s veil – embroidered with a huge image of the Virgin Mary – cascaded down the red velvet steps of the altar. Looming over the couple was a statue of Mary cradling Jesus. The altar groaned under the weight of gold. The day prior, the bride wore a black dress with a black veil, the Virgin Mary printed on her chest.
The wedding party was not dressed by Christ or by Prada, but by Dolce & Gabbana, an Italian fashion house whose style is centred in a devotion to the church. And so the world’s most famous reality TV family have begun to accessorise with holiness. And they have thrown a wedding – perhaps one of the most well-documented in the world – that looked nothing short of a papal costume party.
Even the most dyed-in-the-wool Roman Catholic might have found this all to be a bit too much. Perhaps the instinct to wear the sacred as a fashion statement is all too alluring: the wedding was neither reverent nor godly but it was definitely trendy. Conspicuous in its absence was any attempt to wrestle with the politics of the church – that is fair, it was a wedding after all. But if it was intended to be an actual gesture of spirituality, it was certainly an odd interpretation of the concept.
Praying bikini
Nevertheless, the Catholic Look is everywhere right now. More traditional worshippers might find a skimpy bikini from the brand Praying, emblazoned with the words “The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit” bordering on the sacrilegious. In 2018, the annual Metropolitan Museum’s costume gala was themed Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. Pop superstar Rihanna came dressed as the Pope. Cassocks and crucifixes were ubiquitous. The display was gaudy, amusing and utterly distasteful.
Douthat suggests that as church recedes from the public realm, it is being treated as a historical artefact: something to be studied in a museum, or reinterpreted and crudely adopted by the world’s tastemakers and fashion editors. It is a curious way to treat an active religion with millions of adherents. Impious? Absolutely. Offensive? That depends on who you ask.
But in an increasingly accepting world, it is hard to be subversive. Piercings and tattoos are commonplace, unnatural hair dye bordering on banal, and it’s no longer radical to be atheist. So what are the trend setters to do? They have pushed the pendulum back the other way and heralded the triumphant return of the baroque, the traditionalist, and the holy.
Of course, this could be a subconscious desire for spiritual guidance in a secular age. The world is chaotic. And though liberalism has granted the aesthetes all the rights they hold so dear, perhaps a dose of divine stability is what they crave. Even though the Beloved Virgin Mary is present but no longer central to our shared public consciousness, at least we can rejoice in the knowledge that Kourtney Kardashian can staple her to her chest.
This, of course, is Catholicism in pastiche only: far from the Kingdom of God and with little interest in finding it.