A dozen special-occasion outfits worn by Gayle Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans and chairwoman of the St. Louis Cathedral restoration effort, form the central display of “Sunday Best: Faith, Family, and Fashion,” now on view at the Old Ursuline Convent Museum.
Presented with the original concept of a fundraising display of Benson’s finery, Christopher Wiseman, executive director of the Catholic Cultural Center of New Orleans, which oversees both the cathedral and convent museum, engaged curators Sarah Waits and Katie Beeman to expand the show beyond those garments. They incorporated a bishop’s crozier dating to 1793, pre- and post-Vatican II clergy vestments and, in an alcove dedicated to Black Catholics’ practice of “Showing Up and Showing Out,” an Easter Sunday 2022 ensemble credited to Soul Train Fashions (mint-green pinstriped jacket, white slacks and shoes, socks showing a glimpse of pink) worn by Father Tony Ricard at St. Gabriel the Archangel Church.
Pulling it all together is a central corridor packed with family snapshots of parishioners “showing out” in their Sunday best through the years – an exhibition component filled out by a call for submissions in the Clarion Herald.
The snapshot gallery is a rolling history of clothing and hairstyles recorded at special moments in the subjects’ lives. The snapshot subjects pose “in front of the altar at their church or on the sidewalk outside of their house or getting dressed up for first communion,” Waits said. “Easter egg hunts on the church lawn — just a variety of activities that happen in and around our churches.”
Read the November 16 Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate story about the exhibit, a showcase for curatorial imagination as well as some fancy clothes, here. Listen to a podcast interview with Waits and Wiseman here. Photos are below.
