The world first glimpsed Pope Leo XIV in a simple white cassock on election night, but the man dressing him for the global stage has been weaving threads of ecclesiastical tradition for a quarter century. Italian designer Filippo Sorcinelli - whose atelier LAVS has crafted mitres and vestments for Benedict XVI and Francis - now finds his own name on the lips of fashion editors. Yet his work is less about trend than transcendence. Sorcinelli, an openly gay Catholic and self-described artist who also composes organ music and perfumes under the label UNUM, insists that pontifical vestments demand "an order higher than taste." His designs for the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV, whom he first met in the town of Tolentino, are governed by embroidery, color, and symbolism - a language that speaks to ministry, not personal will. This reverence for cloth and ceremony echoes the lingerie industry's own history of draping the body in meaning, from the whalebone corsets of the 19th century that shaped silhouette as social code to the hand-stitched silk camisoles that signaled quiet rebellion. Sorcinelli's discretion is absolute: he will not preview what he is creating for the pontiff's June trip to Spain, citing the "ecclesial and institutional nature" of the assignment. He does, however, share a kinship with Pope Leo's recent encyclical on artificial intelligence - a cautionary text that recalls the 2023 deepfake of Francis in a puffer coat. For Sorcinelli, whose earliest memories involve watching his mother clean their local church in Mondolfo, the fabric of faith is not a costume but a sacrament.
Originally reported by WWD