I have a favorite T-shirt. It’s one I usually wear to bars. I’m not one for flashy or provocative clothing, so my bad girl shines through in a peculiar way: by wearing a shirt with Saint Anthony on it. At first, I thought I was sinning by wearing a shirt like that out to drink. But it wasn’t the blasphemous act I thought it was. Religious entities are becoming commonplace in fashion. They’re the new rebel cause. Ironically, the most conventional and traditional images are the only things left to corrupt and commoditize. For a society that is practicing traditional religion less and less, Christian icons have never been more prevalent. It’s a bond so strong, the 2018 Met Gala theme celebrates the marriage of Catholicism and fashion. My relationship with the church is a close one. I’m Italian-American, a culture that intertwines itself with Catholicism. It took me years to understand that not everyone was taught the same beliefs as me. Furthermore, it was a hard shock learning that kids chose to reject faith. It was eighth grade, the first day back from winter break, and I was telling my friends about my family’s Christmas traditions. “We sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jesus every Christmas,” I explained. My friends were stunned—for them, Christmas was a time of gift giving, not of spiritual rites. In my monotonous, mostly white, mostly Christian town, I felt ashamed of my saint bracelets, of my crosses, and of my time in church. I liked my traditions, but I knew my classmates saw religion as something their parents pushed on them. It was trendy to reject it. For a generation of teens that hated religion, Forever 21 loved to shove it down our throats. It was as if Madonna had crucified herself and exploded on the cross, and her shrapnel descended upon the sweaters and ill-fitting nylon crop tops of fast fashion-hood. A time-standing symbol was flipped upside down and somehow served 62
as a flag for wannabe hipsters. Rings and necklaces with crosses were suddenly cool, as long as they came from the mall and not from your grandparents. The symbol of my religion was in, but this interpretation of it was something I didn’t want to be a part of—it felt tacky and ingenuine. In high school, I knew a teen mentor who enjoyed calling out self-obsessed children for our instant following of fads. He once looked down at a gold ring of mine, with a cross climbing my finger and said, smugly, “Wow, aren’t you really into religion,” thinking that he’d nabbed another mindless trend-follower. “Yes, I am,” I replied firmly. “I wear this ring because I believe in its power.” Finally, it was edgy to be different, to adorn yourself in images of history and controversy. But that’s not why I wore my ring, and I always worried that others would clump me in with the majority. In 2013, Kanye West, another rebellious and devout christian, renamed himself Yeezus with an album by the same name. It wasn’t the first time the rapper entranced listeners with religious themes. In 2004, he released the hit song “Jesus Walks.” In 2006, he posed on the cover of Rolling Stone, adorned in a crown of thorns like Christ on the cross. However, Yeezus was the first time West called himself a god. It was a controversial naming. One of the main pillars of Christianity is the belief in one God almighty. West never referred to himself as God. It was a hard line to walk, and many disapproved of his choice, calling it out as blasphemy. However, his connection to religion in the public eye grew nonetheless. In 2016, he released “The Life of Pablo,” a gospel album about Saint Paul. He even named his first son Saint. As West attempted to become the voice of a new religious moment, his stock in the fashion empire grew. At the same time as his overt revelations, West worked me-