Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Graphic Design
Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination Details
Book Description This book is a brilliant exploration of fashion’s complex engagement with the great art and artifacts influenced by Catholic faith and practice. Read more About the Author Andrew Bolton is Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Read more
Reviews
I am really saddened that this incredible exhibition of extremely beautiful objects has been reduced in this book to a lot of style at the expense of substance. While that might not be surprising to some who hold a low opinion of fashion as art, for those of who love fashion, this catalogue s a travesty. As the other reviewers have pointed out, all of the photographs of clothing (for some reason, the accessories were exempted) have been fragmented in what I understand is meant to be an "arty" and "arresting" manner. Many of the images of very austere dresses with incredible construction are blurred to the point where you can't make out their design (particularly in the case of black pieces, which, with a subject like this, are pretty plentiful). The design and aesthetic of all of the clothing has been altered by the photographs. If the photographs themselves were supposed to be the main point of this book, fine, but the beauty of the design and construction of these extraordinary pieces of clothing has been destroyed by the photographs, which emphasize the (banal, monotonous) aesthetic of the image at the expense of the clothing that is meant to be the main focus of this book. It's a travesty. The catalogue is beautifully designed, but the design choice made with the photographs was a major mistake. If you just want a beautiful object to put on your coffee table, have at it; however, if you want to actually look at the incredible clothing that is the subject of the exhibit, you would be better off by far looking at runway images on the internet and saving yourself some money. I really cannot imagine what the curators were thinking in allowing this to go through.
