Taking place over a two-week period last August, the Virga Jesse celebration is thrown every seven years in Hasselt. An important part of the city's cultural heritage, it is a hugely popular affair. As the director of the city's Fashion Museum, Ramaekers was keen to avoid any associations with fusty, dreary outfits.

"Old religious clothes, cast-offs...that's not what we wanted to show," he tells me. "We're a fashion museum. I wanted something more cutting edge, something exciting." Madonna springs to mind. But Ramaekers had noticed that many designers have worked with religious themes since that 1980s period, and so he and his team set about finding them.

The result, Devout/Divine - Fashion vs Religion is three floors of haute couture and prêt-a-porter fashion by top designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Dries Van Noten and Vivienne Westwood. All the outfits are inspired by religious symbolism, ranging from burqas and cassocks to the Star of David and Hindu gods.

Far from fusty, the theme is actually topical. "Religion is everywhere; you just have to open the newspaper to see that," says Ramaekers. "Scandals in the Catholic Church, laws to ban the burqa. Even if you don't want anything to do with religion, you can't avoid it."

While acknowledging that religious symbols are usually used in fashion for their aesthetic value rather than as a statement about religious identity, the museum's director is very aware that they can still evoke strong reactions.

Hasselt Fashion Museum itself stumbled upon a few difficulties. For example, the museum had hoped to include an image of Karl Lagerfeld's 1994 "Quran dress", but there had been so much negative reaction at the time that the request proved out of the question. The low-cut evening dress decorated with text from the Quran, and nicknamed "The Satanic Breasts" by the media, provoked world-wide protests and death threats against Claudia Schiffer, who modelled the dress on the catwalk. In response, Lagerfeld agreed to have the dress burned and issued a public apology.

The museum has not had any negative reactions to Devout/Divine so far. If Ramaekers had any reservations about any of the exhibition's content, he swept them aside because Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism are all tackled head-on.

A standout is the collection of four Gaultier dresses that were part of the French designer's 2007 couture summer collection with a Virgin Mary theme. Symbols of the Sacred Heart of Mary and a chalice are subtlety integrated into the elegant gowns. Gaultier's inspiration for this collection was religious art in Catholic churches.

Spanish designer Cristobal Balenciaga used his strong Catholic homeland as an inspiration for the shapes of his clothes. One of his dresses, on loan from the Victoria & Albert museum in London, is a black silk evening dress and cape, simple in design and yet stunning. As Eve Demoen, the exhibition's project researcher, said of the 1967 dress: "It's my favourite. It's so pretty and quite extraordinary."

But rock 'n' roll religion isn't left behind: several pieces from Londoner Todd Lynn's 2009 winter collection are here, including a short, black leather cape inspired by the mozetta worn by the pope and cardinals, and a woman's tailored, knee-length white jacket with a high collar and matching long scarf, based on a priest's liturgical stola. Known for his work with music industry elite, like Mick Jagger and Bono, Lynn's fashions have been placed in church-like recesses, while others, such as Raf Simons' designs - inspired by Catholic school uniforms - are in spaces reminiscent of confessional boxes.

The dominant colours in the exhibition are, perhaps unsurprisingly, black and white. Until, that is, you find the Hindu-inspired designs. Suddenly you're hit by an explosion of colour. One space is dedicated to the work of India's Manish Arora, with the mannequins lined up along a catwalk-like podium surrounded by 100 candles in a dimly lit room. The atmosphere contrasts strikingly with the bright, at times garish, clothes made from fabrics full of Hindu gods or decorated with sequins and coloured beads.

And what fashion exhibition would be complete without Belgium's own Walter Van Beirendonck, whose famously wild styles seem to offer something for every theme? His collection of burqas for men is made out of brightly coloured wool, one in blue and black stripes with yellow pompoms around the head, another with red and blue woollen strips plaited together and red pompoms hanging down to the knees.

By changing the burqa's traditional colours and material - not to mention the gender wearing it - Van Beirendonck raises the question of what it is about this item of clothing that many in western society object to. "For me it was a way of commenting on how our society is currently reacting to Islam and other religions," Van Beirendonck writes in the exhibition's catalogue. "My solution was, ‘I'll take it out of its context. I'll make it a fashion item, and then no one will say anything about it anymore!' "

Just as Van Beirendonck turns traditional women's religious clothing into men's fashion, Spain's Miguel Adrover transforms typical Jewish male clothing into contemporary creations for women. This is somewhat provocative, as the law of Moses states that men and women may not wear the same clothing. In another ensemble, Adrover incorporates the Star of David.

Given that Buddhism rejects materialism and Buddhists' possessions are restricted to one gown, a needle and a rosary of beads, it's perhaps not surprising that this religion is the least represented. Nonetheless, Gaultier based a 2001 collection on traditional monks' clothing, combining Buddhist and western influences, and Raf Simons used Buddhist elements in his 2004 summer collection, designing loose orange ensembles that evoke monks' robes.

Though you may not see the Quran dress at Devout/Divine, you will find other photographed fashions, including Olivero Toscani's "Kissing nun and priest". A video, meanwhile, shows how Sabijn Peeters "Resurrection" series of t-shirts can be transformed into headwear, while a glass cabinet sports religious- inspired jewellery, such as rosary beads transformed into necklaces, pendants with the Virgin Mary, and brooches depicting Jesus on the cross.

Devout/Divine - Fashion vs Religion
Until 9 January Hasselt Fashion Museum Gasthuisstraat 11
www.modemuseumhasselt.be

Holding down the Hasselt fort
Hasselt is more out of the way than other Flemish cities and located in a sparsely populated province. It can be a hard sell to artists and visitors alike when it comes to exhibitions and other cultural events.

But Hasselt is equipped with two first-rate infrastructures holding down the cultural fort. Z33 arts centre is the "point of reference" for students from the art and design schools in Hasselt and nearby Genk. In terms of a broader audience, Tim Toubac, in charge of communications, acknowledges that the centre's location poses a challenge. "We are not in Brussels, Antwerp or Ghent. That's a difficulty," he says. So they work very hard to make sure Z33 can offer visitors "something that they won't find elsewhere". Z33 has been raising its international profile in recent years, working with partners across Europe, touring its exhibitions and this year for the first time exhibiting at the Milan Art Fair.

Hasselt's Fashion Museum has its work even more cut out for it. Antwerp's Fashion Museum gets more funding, has far more staff and has an internationally renowned fashion school on the same site. But Hasselt's exquisitely curated exhibitions, which generally start from a historical perspective, are world class and worth a trip to Hasselt all by themselves.