If you're not a Catholic, but you have visited the sacristy of popular churches and cathedrals in Italy or museums of traditions associated with specific churches, you may have seen walls covered with silver hearts or medallions representing body parts like a disembodied leg, arm or hand.
These objects are called ex-voto and are little tokens showing how a believer’s vow (voto) was fulfilled. Usually vows involve prayers or fasting in return for a cure and the silver figurines represent a healed part of the human body.
In the past the healed person would also donate his or her own picture and maybe a drawing, painting or illustration that visually recounted the great danger he or she went through, but it was also popular to donate further tokens like a chopped braid, crutches and prosthetic limbs as well.
Ex-votos were already rather common in the classical world when they were made in materials such as clay and terra cotta, but the silver ones are more elaborate and at times also engraved with letters such as "PGR", "Per grazia ricevuta" (for a grace received) or "VFG", "Voto fatto grazie" (a vow was realised, thank you).
Ex-votos often appeared also in the history of fashion: we saw them quite a few times in Jean-Paul Gaultier's collections for example, and some fashionistas may even remember how the designer sent out during his Spring/Summer 2007 runway a model covered in a series of ex-votos that formed a sort of rather bizarre and sensual religious armour.
In December 2009, in one edition of Bizet's Carmen at Milan's Opera directed by Emma Dante, Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili donned a costume with ex votos pinned to her chest; heart-shaped brooches similar to traditional ex-votos appeared in Dolce & Gabbana's A/W 2010 collection and ex-votos were used as complements for a window shop in a New York-based Paul Smith store.
Like it or not, ex-votos will be back in fashion come next Spring: while Pope Francis was away visiting Albania on Sunday morning, ex-votos were indeed reappearing on the Milanese runways courtesy (of who else but) Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.
The main inspiration was actually the Spanish domination of Sicily and the show opened with a model in an all-black bullfighter's jacket matched with hot pants. More models followed in duchesse satin and brocade bolero jackets (at times paired with cyclists shorts and flat slippers) decorated with intricate embroideries. Velvet cummerbunds, ruffled flamenco dancer's polka dot dresses with embroidered carnations and castanets decorating the buns were further obvious references to this main inspiration.
But there was another strong sub-theme to the Spanish semantics, religion. Used and reused by fashion, religion reappered in the silver and gold ex votos appliqued or printed on dresses and tops, while a golden corset with a Sacred Heart hinted at elaborate statues of the Virgin Mary. The show closed with the usual gang of girls dressed this time in a white shirt and red high-waisted shorts with floral embroideries or with the occasional appliqued ex voto. In a nutshell it was a bit like toreador almost meets his death "a las cinco de la tarde" and his girlfriend rushes to church to pray for his miraculous recovery.
The ex votos weren't calculated to mock, though, but to sell (religion on the runway acts as opium for the masses of consumers...): quite a few people aren't familiar with these religious tokens and there were those among the foreign media who interpreted the bleeding Sacred Heart decorations as hinting at hopeless romance. Others instead didn't know what to do with the Barbie-like dolls dressed like the models and carried around in a majolica tile case.
There is actually an (almost) logical reason behind them: Sicily is famous for the Opera dei Pupi (Puppet Theatre) and the dolls were a Barbie-like reincarnation of the traditional puppets, a hint revealed in a hand-painted skirt with a puppet theatre stage (who knows maybe some fashion editors who works as consultant for Moschino and suggested the Barbie-themed collection there also works for D&G? Anna Dello Russo?).
The main references in this collection - Spain, Sicily, ex votos, mantilla-like capes as thick as theatre curtains and the operatic soundtrack pointed towards Bizet's Carmen directed by Emma Dante (by the way, she comes from Sicily as well).
Who cares, you may say, if D&G borrowed ideas and inspirations, the value of a collection stays in the execution and there was plenty of craftsmanship here. In fact the most annoying thing about this collection wasn't the reference to opera, and not even the fact that ex votos - usually employed as thank you notes to a saint and left in a church to tell stories of survival from tragedies, accidents and illnesses - were employed as marks of luxury rather than as signs of devotion (but you can buy ex votos at antiquarians and on market stalls in Italy and freely wear them in an even more controversial and sacrilegious way if you want...).
The most annoying thing remains the fact that this inspiration has resurfaced in the history of fashion quite a few times. So maybe the ex voto should be banned from the runway not for religious reasons, but because we have seen them too many times and, rather than being proof of controversy, they are becoming proof of design laziness. That said, now Madonna knows what she may wear if she ever re-releases "Like a Prayer" (after all this year she celebrates the 25th anniversary of the hit). Amen.
Please note:if you're ever invited to a wedding in a Catholic church in Italy avoid the most elaborate Dolce & Gabbana's Spring/Summer 2015 ex voto looks: you don't want the other guests to think you're part of the interior design of the church or you're a statue of a saint who has suddenly come alive...
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