While a few Met Gala-related Twitter spats are to be expected, works by Cristóbal Balenciaga, Elsa Schiaparelli, Dolce & Gabbana, John Galliano, Valentino, and Versace, as well as 50 ecclesiastical garments and accessories on loan from the Vatican, will ensure that the exhibition will be nothing short of extraordinary. Stretching across three galleries—the Anna Wintour Costume Centre, the mediaeval rooms, and the Cloisters—it will also feature multiple works from the Met’s collection of religious art.

All of the 150 designer garments going on display are inspired in some way by Catholicism. This ranges from Italian fashion houses such as Versace and Dolce & Gabbana, where iconography makes up an essential part of the aesthetic, to more subtle inspirations such as the Valentino couture that borrows from Francisco de Zurbarán’s paintings of monk’s robes, the Chanel wedding gown tailored to look like a communion dress, or the Chanel cape inspired by the nuns who taught at Coco’s school.

“No matter which religion we are talking about, those symbols are very powerful because they tip into the unknown, the otherworldly,” says Versace. “You do not have to go to church to be familiar with those icons. They represent at the same time something we do not understand but that we accept. In fashion, they are not used with their literal meaning, and that is why, maybe, they are even more powerful.”

Costume Institute head curator Andrew Bolton is the brains behind the exhibition, one for which he fought hard to get approval, and he has worked closely with the Vatican to bring it to fruition. And while he has been criticised for introducing such provocative subject matter in a fraught period in US politics, he firmly believes the country needs exhibitions such as this more than ever.

“The focus is on a shared hypothesis about what we call the Catholic imagination and the way it has engaged artists and designers and shaped their approach to creativity, as opposed to any kind of theology or sociology,” Bolton told the New York Times. “Beauty has often been a bridge between believers and unbelievers.”

And he is right. Politics aside, this is set to be a ground-breaking exploration into the vital role Catholicism has played in modern fashion. While all religions have a strong visual aesthetic, what sets the Catholic Church apart is the way it has used clothing to denote faith, mainly through its flamboyant, colourful hierarchy of robes, which are a signifier for everything from rank to occasion.

In Italy in particular, but also in France and Spain, the national obsession with elegance, beauty and modest dressing can be traced back to the church itself, which taught the public that style and grace is akin to godliness, with rich embroidery, ermine cloaks, and scarlet robes seen as signs of religious intent for centuries. Pope Benedict XVI was famed for his fashion sense, giving speeches in Prada slippers, pillar box-red capes, and richly embroidered scarves; Benedict’s successor, Pope Francis, was named the Best Dressed Man of the Year by Esquire.

And this sense of pomp and ceremony has filtred into many of Europe’s most revered fashion houses. At Dolce & Gabbana, ecclesiastical motifs are a constant, from cherub-adorned earrings in 2012, to handbags stamped with the Madonna and Child in 2015, and to slick suits printed with images of the Virgin Mary in 2017. And menswear is just as fervent, with jumpers covered in 16th-century images of Jesus in 2015 and the 12 apostles a year earlier.

Meanwhile, over at Versace, Donatella daringly placed gothic crosses all over slinky black dresses in 2012, clearly inspired by her late brother Gianni, who had reworked Catholic imagery for decades. “Gianni was one of the first designers to take religious iconography and strip it of its symbolism,” she says. “You know, growing up in Italy, religion has always been part of our lives and therefore it was inevitable that it would find its way into fashion at some point. However, that was not simple. Religion was one of those things that, back then, you could not touch let alone use as a decorative element in clothes. But Gianni did what he wanted and that is why the religious symbols appeared in various collections and have become part of the DNA of Versace.”

And Versace is not alone. Galliano printed crucifixes on Dior T-shirts in 2001 couture, as did Givenchy in 2015. YSL placed communion cups on dresses in 2005, while Jean-Paul Gaultier opted for a stained-glass window effect in 2007. More recently, Gucci’s scarlet skirts and golden cummerbunds of 2015 had a distinctly papal air.

But while the Catholic iconography in these designs is unmissable, a more subtle interpretation of the religious aesthetic has been filtering down to the red carpet for the past few seasons. Modesty dressing is now ubiquitous after being championed by unlikely suspects such as Kim Kardashian and Kate Moss—women who traditionally always dared to bare. By contrast, this season they—and we—are all swathed in layers, looking notably more demure than in decades as hemlines have migrated from above the knee to below, collars snuggle up to chins and party dresses brush our ankles and wrists.

It can’t be a coincidence that the trend for modesty dressing has come at the exact same moment that brands are waking up to the spending power of women who need to look modest for religious reasons. Dolce & Gabbana now sells abayas, Nike designs headscarves, and hijab-wearing model Halima Aden has been the toast of New York Fashion Week, all creating a fashion culture that is far more open to the concept that covering up can be chic.

The sweeping impact of #MeToo is also a factor. Victoria Beckham noted at the end of her most recent show that modesty dressing “puts power back into the hands of the wearer rather than the observer.” Short skirts were once a symbol of feminism, as women’s liberation smashed the old rules, but today a looser silhouette can be a sign of a woman who is keen to be judged for more than her body shape.

Coolness, Catholicism, and covering up; monotheistic religions and feminism—concepts that were once poles apart are now slowly converging as the fashion industry borrows from centuries-old iconography to create the most modern of movements.

Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination runs at The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters in New York from 10 May to 8 October 2018