Blake Lively’s dress may have taken 600 hours to make, but it was one priest who won praise at the Met Gala for the clothes he wears every day.
Father James Martin, SJ stood out from the likes of Rihanna and Cardi B by sporting what some gala attendees believed was the costume of a ‘sexy priest’.
The priest tweeted some of the hilarious things that were said to him during the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala, which quickly went viral.
Father James Martin, SJ stood out from the likes of Rihanna and Cardi B by sporting what some gala attendees believed was a ‘sexy priest’ costume at the Met Gala on Monday
The priest tweeted some of the hilarious things that were said to him during the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala, which quickly went viral
Martin, who fit right in with the ‘Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination’ theme, revealed that one person told him they loved his ‘costume’.
One attendee said the priest had a ‘funky outfit’ and another high-fived him and said ‘You’re the best dressed dude here, bro!’
Another guest assured Martin, 57, he looked ‘just like the real thing’, while one person proclaimed: ‘I love that you got dressed up as a sexy priest’.
Martin, whose tweet received more than 21,000 likes, took the hilarious comments in stride on Monday night.
Martin (pictured here with George Clooney and Timothy Cardinal Dolan on Monday) took the hilarious comments in stride.
‘Occasionally, I meet people who don’t seem to run into priests in their lives,’ he told the Huffington Post after the event.
‘As a result, they don’t know what to say. So I try to take it in stride, and I give them the benefit of the doubt.’
Martin, a consultor to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communication, helped curator Andrew Bolton with the exhibit and reviewed plans before the big night.
The exhibit, which is being held in the museum’s Anna Wintour Costume Center, features 40 rare papal objects that had never before left the Vatican archives.
Although he rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s biggest stars, it was the choir that Martin was most excited about
Martin said he hoped the exhibit would help people realize the ‘influence the Catholic imagination has on art’.
‘The Catholic imagination is very broad and includes not only priests and sisters working in the slums in the poorest countries, but also artists like Michelangelo and Caravaggio creating great works of art for the church,’ he told Women’s Wear Daily.
‘So the Catholic church is very much both/and. It is not either the people, who work with the poor, or a church that influences art. It’s both.’
Martin, a consultor to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communication, helped curator Andrew Bolton with the exhibit and reviewed plans before the big night
Although he rubbed shoulders with some of the world’s biggest stars, it was the choir that Martin was most excited about.
‘The highlight of the #MetGala for me was not the celebrities but the surprise appearance of the Sistine Chapel Choir,’ he tweeted on Monday night.
Overall, Martin said he found the entire event ‘enjoyable’.
‘They obviously can’t control how everyone dresses, and only a few of the costumes were over the top,’ he said. ‘But overall, it was a pleasant night.’