The exhibit “Sunday Best: Faith, Family, and Fashion,” now on view at the Old Ursuline Convent Museum, showcases curatorial imagination at work.

Born as a fundraising event for the St. Louis Cathedral restoration, it became a more comprehensive look at the churchgoing finery of both parishioners and clergy.

A dozen special-occasion outfits worn by Gayle Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans and chairwoman of the cathedral-restoration effort, form the central display of the exhibit.

Expanding the show beyond those garments incorporates 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-g

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