Solange Proves That the Virgin Mary Should Have Worn A Durag
Nobody is playing games on this year's Met Gala red carpet, where halos, headdresses, and veils abound.
Amid unlikely and very certainly uncorroborated rumors that Anna Wintour will be departing Vogue this year, it would be easy to view tonight’s Met Gala as a sort of swan song for the Costume Institute's biggest benefactor. It’s not that much of a stretch, one might even say, that this year’s exhibition, titled Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, was written in the stars.
In the 2009 documentary The September Issue, when Candy Pratts Price was asked what it was like to work at Vogue by director R.J. Cutler, she responded, “It’s like belonging to a church.”
Pushing further, Cutler inquired, “And Anna is the high priestess?”
“I would say she is more like the pope.”
Rihanna may not be eyeing the throne at Vogue, but someone needs to alert the papal conclave because she is definitely coming for that mitre. In a move that shut down the red carpet before it had scarcely begun, Rih-sus made her grand entrée donning a Maison Margiela Artisanal headdress paved with shimmering pearls, crystals, beads, and other embellishments befitting the pontiff. Hers signaled an accessories trend that ruled the red carpet—tonight is all about major head gear.
While references to the Virgin Mary were ubiquitous, from Cardi B in Jeremy Scott to SZA in Versace, the quite literal crown goes to Solange. Last fall, the Evening Standard Magazine notoriously photoshopped Solange's aureole of platinum blonde hair out of her October cover shoot. Like many black women, Solange’s hair has been scrutinized and politicized, and her image manipulated to suit the status quo of an industry that all too often attempts to erase blackness. So when she Instagrammed a picture with the caption, "dtmh [Don't Touch My Hair] @eveningstandardmagazine," her loyal army of supporters felt satisfied. Tonight, in a visual code shift and sartorial power move that has us all rejoicing, she topped off her Iris Van Herpen look with a similar halo and regal durag.
Mic drop doesn’t even begin to cover it. Blessed be Solange.
