THE MET’S SUNDAY BEST: Last-minute museum-goers still have 10 days to catch the record-breaking “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fifth Avenue location and The Met Cloisters.
With 1.3 million visitors at the Upper East Side museum and nearly 200,000 at The Met Cloisters — and counting — the show is the most-visited one for The Met’s Costume Institute. Spanning 60,000 square feet and 25 galleries, the exhibition is the largest that has ever been staged. A myriad of designs from Thierry Mugler, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Thom Browne, Azzedine Alaïa, John Galliano for the House of Dior, Claire McCardell, Madeleine Vionnet, Isabel Toledo, Pierpaolo Piccioli for Valentino, Elsa Schiaparelli and other designers are on view throughout the Met. The layout inevitably is leading many attendees to areas of the museum beyond the Costume Institute. On the flip side, visitors who may be in search of non-fashion exhibitions may be introduced and perhaps tempted to explore more in The Costume Institute.
The success of the exhibition has been another winning moment for The Costume Institute’s curator in charge Andrew Bolton, who has helped to rev up attendance numbers in recent years. “Heavenly Bodies” appears to be closing
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