There’s a scene in Edward Berger’s Oscar-winning film Conclave when hard-liner cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) calls a meeting with liberal cardinal Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci) for more cloak-and-dagger discussions around the successor to the recently deceased pope. The conversation is held in a Vatican anteroom where the new pontiff’s cassocks hang in state like a collection of couture gowns in a dead socialite’s grand Upper East Side apartment wardrobe. Before he approaches Lawrence, Tucci’s Bellini can’t help going straight to the rail, literally touching cloth and, ever so quietly, gasping at the collection’s breathtaking pomp, splendor, and ornate otherness.
This is Conclave’s Gatsby moment—the couture cassocks as shirts so beautiful but also ill-fated—and a reminder that, while the role of supreme pontiff may be the highest religious authority in the Western world, burdened with responsibilities that include providing spiritual guidance to all Catholics, presiding over beatifications, and meeting with global leaders and politicians, it’s actually, really, all about the clothes.
During the next few weeks, after a real-life conclave, the new pope will be selected. And following initial public appearances in some off-the-peg, prêt-à-papal fits, he will be measured up for the bespoke-est of wardrobes. This is an arcane, highly specific process, color, fabric, and decorative choices made for the Holy See’s camauro, pellegrina, chasuble, fascia, zucchetto, pallium, mantum, ferula, etc.
The late Pope Francis arrives for the papal consistory in 2015.
The world’s stylists, fashion plates, and menswear writers will be watching closely. Every detail—footwear and hosiery selection, mitre height, soutane tone, and lace rochet option—will be noted and deconstructed as a gesture of character and ethical leaning. The blingy-ness or modesty of the papal pectoral cross, interpreted as a possible political signifier.
Which way will the new guy go with cut and colorway? Showy and dressy, like Pope Benedict XVI in his martyr-blood red, Santa-ish mozzetta, gem-encrusted cross, and controversial scarlet “Prada” slip-ons? (Actually not Prada at all but handmade by Novara cobbler Adriano Stefanelli, the Vatican also flatly denying the rumored collab with meme-like economy: “The pope is not dressed by Prada but by Christ.” )
The late Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.
Or perhaps he will veer more minimalist and egalitarian, like Pope John Paul II’s plain brown lace-ups and Pope Francis’s monotone, norm-core frocks, once described as “more Uniqlo than Balenciaga.” (Francis was the first pontiff to land a Rolling Stone cover and was Esquire’s “Best-Dressed Man” in 2013).
Pope John Paul II in 1979.
And who will actually make the new pope’s clothes? For the past two papacies, the Vatican has employed the services of Filippo Sorcinelli, tailor/parfumier/proprietor of Rome’s L’Atelier Vesti Sacre.
A very modern designer with elaborate body inkings, a shaved head, and a hipster beard, Sorcinelli derives inspiration from the early days of the Catholic Church, “when it was the symbol that counted, not so much the ornamentation.”
Working from a studio in the town of Santarcangelo di Romagna near Rimini—LAVS made 50 garments for the late Pope Benedict XVI, as well as 20 for Pope Francis—attention to craftsmanship, minutiae, and detail are right up there with the rigor of a Paris couture maison. LAVS’s ready-to-prayer, off-the-peg, silk chasubles are light and transitional—good for both ordinary mass and high mass.
Prices range from 1,000 euros to 7,000 euros and can take up to 1,000 hours to sew.
A man of the Catholic faith himself, Sorcinelli is also homosexual, with strong connections to Italy’s LGBT community—the L’Atelier Vesti Sacre perfume line includes fragrances called Cyber Sex, Popper Pop, and Cruising Area—perhaps hinting to the brand-adjacent Vatican’s increasingly liberal and modern attitudes toward sexuality.
“Carravagio, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci and many other artists have shown us that the creation of beauty overcomes all,” says Sorcinelli. “So the church does not pass judgment.”
He’s not the first designer to have experienced a religious awakening either. In the recent past—just one or two popes ago—Italian houses Versace and Dolce & Gabbana have produced collections adorned with crosses and depictions of the holy Madonna. Nicolas Ghesquière’s tenure at Balenciaga drew influence from founder Cristóbal Balenciaga’s obsession with vestments and habits. In 2018, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art staged “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” an exhibition exploring fashion’s complex and often controversial relationship with Catholicism. Alongside elaborate and talismanic items from the Vatican’s archive at the show were papally influenced pieces by Riccardo Tisci, Jean-Paul Gaultier, John Gallinao, Chanel, and Thom Browne.
Even simple suiting and classic menswear has experienced the calling.
Conceptual artist Carlo Brandelli, formerly creative director at Kilgour, showed ascetic, distinctly Franciscan influence in his final collections and sensible black-leather shoe line for the Savile Row tailor.
“I’m Italian and was brought up Roman Catholic,” Brandelli once explained. “A profound sense of ceremony has always been important to me. My earliest memories are really of being in the Church, where I would look at the shapes of the Cross and see what people were wearing. I do believe that everything we see, if we have an opinion about it, is informed through some kind of spiritual ideology.“
Even trousers. Following the death of Pope Francis, the streamers saw viewing figures for Conclave rise by almost 300 percent.
Expect a similar spike in sales of silk chasubles and lace rochets.
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