It is a uniform ‘fashion week’, tailored for popes and cardinals.

Rome – In the land of Prada and Dolce & Gabbana, fashion houses are associated with the fugitive.

Yet on Saturday, when the Vatican hosts the equivalent of the Oscars, Pope Francis will induct 20 new cardinals — still the only club in the Catholic Church — to which red carpet reporters will all get the same answer, “Who are you wearing? “

Mancinelli

Although the vestments put me down, the label is always the same as the one worn by the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, when Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal.

The reason lies in the quality, half a dozen religious leaders – from priests to cardinals – have said. Crooks The narrow, restaurant-filled street that leads to the Vatican’s Santana Gate is at the door of this small and unassuming shop in Borgo Pio – the entrance to the world’s smallest empire.

Master tailor Raniero Mancinelli has been dressing popes, cardinals, bishops and priests for the past six decades, with a pair of scissors in hand and a measuring tape as a handkerchief.

“My first congregation was in 1958, when Pope John XIII was elected, but I was a little boy at the time, helping out,” he said.

His nephew, now just a “boy,” is helping out in the shop these days, and the tailor has made no secret of his hope that the tradition of dressing clerics will continue between his own daughter and niece. Family.

Mancinelli cut the cloth on the table, cardinal red and black pieces falling to the floor with each scissors. Above his head, carved into the wood, is his name and the date the shop opened, 1962. Since then he has been involved in dressing bishops, so he had a front-row seat to the changes. It has happened in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).

The council said. Crooks Thursday, “shaken the church,” and the shaking “continues to this day.”

Mancenelli estimated that he clothed six popes and supplied the vestments to at least 30 cardinals. While he declined to say how many of the 22nd class went to the store, he did admit that two in particular stood out: Anthony Pulla of Hyderabad, India, became the first cardinal on Saturday for Dalits — the name for marginalized groups formerly known as “untouchables” in the Hindu caste system — and Peter Obere Okpaleke, from Nigeria.

“When [Okpaleke] He went in first, because he has such a wonderful personality, I was a little shocked, although I wasn’t afraid. However, after knowing him, today I would say he is. papabile Class 2022. He went from imposing to peaceful very quickly, and seemed approachable and very eloquent, all qualities a future pope needs.

Although he was frustrated by the loss of income due to changes in church fashion, Mancenelli made no secret of his admiration for the fact that the later cardinals were “very modest” in their dress and often did not gather. Their own tab that goes from “one to 1,000 euros”.

Soon there was a foundation or association that paid for the cardinals. Today they opened their own wallets,” he said. “Although in some cases I won’t let them pay. And this is not because I am trying to milk them, not because I want them to remain loyal customers, but because there is something in them that I admire. And as a Catholic myself, I don’t mind picking up their tab from time to time!”

The tailor, who has had a front-row seat for the past six conclaves, has only once been clear about who will be chosen, said Cardinal Giovanni Monini, who in 1963 chose Paul VI’s name.

“All the cardinals who came to the store in those days – and there were many in the days leading up to the meeting – all talked to me about Monini,” he said. “Other times the Cardinals raised one of two, one of three. But in 1963, each of them.

When it came to dressing Pope Francis, Mancinelli said he did not adapt the cardinal’s robes worn by Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires in 2001. They were obviously too big for the shy prelate at the time. However, he did indeed make them, but for former Cardinal Antonio Quarasino, who passed away three years ago, in 1998.

“I had a real friendship with Carracino,” Mancinelli said. “It was not a relationship between a cardinal and a dresser, but a true friendship. He often ate at my house when he visited Rome. Actually, there’s one thing I’ve always felt guilty about: While he was here, he had a heart attack the day before he was set to fly back to Argentina. Earlier that day, at my house, he was eating – drinking! – At lunch.”

But Berlioz visited the shop occasionally, and the tailor remembers one occasion in particular, when he came looking for the red fascia that the cardinals wore on their cassocks, and when they heard the cost, Mancinelli called him “a good thief.”

The tailor eventually claims to have forgotten if the transaction ever took place.

A tailor with a perfect location a stone’s throw from the Vatican’s front door often discovers that they have forgotten one garment or another when unpacking. However, organized bodies—along with retreats for newly ordained bishops—often mark the store’s busiest times.

“The fact that the event was completed this month in August did not give us any time off,” he said. Although I greatly appreciate the work, especially after two years of delayed business due to the epidemic, the day was not very good.

It is the concern of many, from Vatican staff to journalists, who do this beating. August is the hottest month of the year, and normally the people of Rome flee the city for the holidays. However, after Pope Francis announced at the end of June that he would be forming a unified group, many had to change their vacation plans.

Worse for Mancinelli, the pope-created bishops of the last 12 months come to Rome in early September to attend in person – colloquially known as “baby papal school” – and soon become Pope John Paul I. He was beaten.

“But work is work, and it definitely beats the alternative!” Cardinal Luis Hector Villalba of Tucuman in northern Argentina concluded the interview with a laugh.