VATICAN CITY – No glitzy gold, no rich velvet, no regal fur. Pope Francis’ pared down papal wardrobe of sensible black shoes and a white cassock so thin you can see his black trousers through it is a perfect fit for his call for simplicity and humility among his clergy.
The pope’s personal style – which earned him Esquire magazine’s “Best Dressed Man of 2013” award – and his broader message of sobriety will be put to the test today when he inducts 19 prelates into the College of Cardinals, placing the three-cornered red silk biretta on the heads of the new “princes of the church.”
For the festive occasion, cardinals are traditionally outfitted in scarlet from head to toe, from the silk skull cap to bright red socks, with a white lace embroidered surplice – known as a rochet – worn over the red cassock and underneath the mozzetta, or shoulder cape.
But with the “slum pope” now calling the sartorial shots, fashionistas and Vaticanistas are wondering how his new cardinals – who hail from some of the poorest places on Earth, including Haiti, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast – will dress themselves for their new role.
“What will make the difference at the consistory is how the cardinals interpret this traditional outfit,” said Raniero Mancinelli who has dressed cardinals and even popes since the early 1960s from his tiny shop right outside the Vatican walls.
Will they splurge for the fancy, optional red silk cape favored by some first-world cardinals? Or will they go the route of the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who according to clerical legend wore an altered hand-me-down cassock inherited from his predecessor for his 2001 consistory?
Mancinelli, who is getting little sleep these days putting the finishing touches on outfits commissioned by several of the new cardinals, has some tips about what to watch out for today when Francis will preside over the consistory formally welcoming the new cardinals.
Immediately noticeable will be how much lace is on the rochet, once sewn by hand – with a price-tag to match – but now often machine made.
“This is the Francis effect,” he said of the cheaper version as he ran his fingers over a prototype.
Back in 2001 when the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, he wore a simple rochet with only two thin bands of embroidered lace.
The cardinals’ red, it should be noted, isn’t just a fabulous fashion statement: As Francis will recite when he places the biretta on each prelate’s head, red symbolizes a cardinal’s readiness to sacrifice his life for the church and “to act with courage, even to the shedding of your blood.”
Cardinal watchers might also want to keep their eyes on the pectoral crosses worn by the churchmen: When the Jesuit Bergoglio became a bishop in 1992, a friend bought him the simple metal pectoral cross he continues to wear as pope (having eschewed the gold-plated one offered to him the night of his election). In a personal letter sent to his new cardinals in early January, Francis asked them to accept his nomination with joy, but to “do so in a way that this avoids any expression of worldliness, or any celebration alien to the evangelical spirit of austerity, simplicity and poverty.”
But there will always be exceptions. Across the Tiber River from the Vatican and Mancinelli’s small shop is Gammarelli, tailors by papal appointment and founded in 1798. Gammarelli famously prepares the three white outfits – small, medium and large – that a newly elected pope picks according to his size to wear out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s after his election.
Sixth generation Lorenzo Gammarelli said Francis’ call for sobriety – which Esquire credited with subtly signaling “a new era (and for many, renewed hope) for the Catholic Church” – hadn’t really affected business at all.
“Those who were simple before remain simple today,” he said. And vice versa. Speaking in front of the old world shop window decorated with the finest of scarlet cardinal garb, including that fancy red cape, he acknowledged: “Simplicity is not here.”
