On a recent cloudy day in Rome, two young priests from Ireland, dressed in a simple tab collars and black pants, stood with noses pressed against the shop window of Ditta Annibale Gammarelli, the ecclesiastical suppliers of clothing and tailors to the Pope since 1798. Gammarelli, behind the Pantheon, is the oldest and the most famous shop in the area that is the Roman Catholic vestments that the streets between via del Corso and the Spanish steps are a La Moda. The window was draped with luxurious red and gold silk robe, the upper vestment the priest wears at mass; hat in the shape of Gothic Windows, was worn by the bishops and the Pope, is called the angle; and red silk socks for the cardinals. There is also a jewelry case ring bishops, and a sign saying “tax free shop”. “You think they’re made of real gold?” one priest asked about the rings. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” another answered.
Inside, the store is crowded. Lorenzo Gammarelli, a tall, bearded, gentle, was Fielding vagrants, the phone rang off the hook. “It’s been like this for three days. I don’t know why. Last week was very simple,” said Gammarelli. He was dressed in a brown tweed jacket and vest, and tie, the color purple crocuses. Lorenzo and his cousins, Massimiliano and Stefano, Paolo is the sixth generation Gammarellis to run the store, which was located on via Santa Chiara since 1874, when cousins grandfather Annibale—grandson of Giovanni Antonio Gammarelli papal first recorded individual opened its doors. Showroom Gammarelli deep rectangular form, double-glazed Windows, counters and shelves in dark, glossy wood. Along one wall are small wooden boxes with inscriptions like “caps red skull” and “the wicker cinctures”. Above the boxes is a row of photographs: Dad, dressed in Gammarelli, from Pius IX to Francis. “Our most valuable customers,” said Lorenzo. He waved his hand in the direction of Benedict XVI, who, when he was Pope, was recognized in 2007 the “Accessorizer of the year” by the magazine Esquire. This prompted the official newspaper of the Vatican to publish a response, “the Holy father is not wearing Prada, but Christ.”
It would also be correct to say that he is dressed by Gammarelli. Before the papal election, store displays papal robes in small, medium and large in the window. The site is so closely watching the chimney above the Sistine Chapel. Even before the Conclave convened, in Gammarellis ready to wear the Pope-elect to his first public performance. “We go to the Holy father,” Lorenzo explained. “Still comes to us.”
Pope Francis named best dressed man alive in 2013, Esquire, one of Gammarellis’ patrons.
Photo by Wojtek Laski / Getty
Papal dress remains almost unchanged for two thousand years, with even small shifts—John Paul II wearing simple loafers, Paul VI, ordering the papal tiara to the Museum, Benedict re mozzetta, the ermine-trimmed red velvet shoulder Cape caused a scandal in the faith. In recent years, however, the Holy couture seems to have spread in the culture as a whole. In 2013 Pope Francis was named the best dressed man alive by Esquire. In the recent HBO series “young dad” lenny Belardo, courteous, smoked American Pontiff, declared himself cardinals to wear ornate regalia from the middle Ages. And since may, the met will host a big fashion show in its history, “heavenly bodies: fashion and the Catholic imagination.” The exhibition will be a pair of high-fashion outfits, items of medieval Christian collection—Museum papal garments and accessories from the Sistine chapel, the sacristy, many of which have never been seen outside of the Vatican, will also be on view.
For Lorenzo, the relationship between fashion and clothing of the clergy dates back to the New Testament (Matthew 6:28: “and about clothing why are you anxious?”). “High fashion tailors should always find something new, something different,” he said. “For us it is exactly the opposite. It should always be the same. We have only one tailor, because all robes should have the same design, same style”. Latest tailor Gammarelli in the family was the brothers grandfather, Bonaventura. Over the past twenty years, head tailor was a woman, Monica, who can be seen scurrying between the dressing rooms where there were two monseigneurs fitted for robes, and up a spiral staircase to the Studio.
Church clothes is not completely static. It also has seasons, are governed not at the whim of Paris, new York or Milan, but the Catholic liturgical calendar. The “green standard time; purple lent and advent, red for Pentecost and the feast of the martyrs; and white for the most important holidays, like Christmas and Easter,” Lorenzo explained. “As for pink, it’s only for two days a year, on the third Sunday of advent and the fourth Sunday of lent.” He took me by Stefano Gammarelli, who helped the woman choosing garments in six colours, as a gift to her diocese, she consulted at great length in German with someone on the mobile phone. We entered the back room, where in a glass box attached to the wall of the ancient models of the company were represented in the portfolios of crimson leather, embossed with the name of the house, tied with a silk ribbon and still. “We say in Italian, ‘not L abito FA Il Monaco’—the clothes don’t make the monk,” said Lorenzo. “But there’s a reason the clothes are beautiful”. He cited St. Francis: “Francis was all for dressing very poor, but he said, ‘When you say mass, you need to use the most expensive fabrics, the most precious things, because it for God.’ ”
“In addition, we would not be happy to do ugly things,” he added. “I would never say that Rize is ugly. But there are ugly.”
The store offers Church socks in three colors: black for priests, purple for bishops and red for cardinals.
Eligio, Paoni / Contrasto / Return
Returning to the front room, a lanky American teenager accompanied by his mother, trudged to the store. “Quanto Costa? . . ” . he started, then hit pause. With encouragement from his mother, he finished: “ . . . in calzini?”
“Thirteen euros socks, sir,” Massimiliano Gammarelli said softly.
“Tourists buy many, many socks,” Lorenzo explained as clearly not an American teenager, Dr. Martens and bleached hair, gone on the boy’s heels, and took his place next to the German-speaking woman on her cell phone and asked for socks.
“Once again we were the socks for the clergy. Black for seminarians and priests, purple for bishops, red for cardinals,” Lorenzo continued. Everything has changed, he said, about twenty years ago, under the patronage of Edward, Balladur, former Prime Minister of France. “We didn’t know him, but he used to wear our socks, red socks,” said Lorenzo. “Only after he was elected Prime Minister, the interviewer asked it as a question, where do you buy fashionable red socks?’ And he answered. In a small shop in Rome, called Gammarelli’. ”
“Then, a few months ago with the film ‘Prizrak thread—I have not seen any of Your film—he wears purple socks that he bought here,” said Lorenzo, referring to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom thread”, and the main character, a fashion designer, played by Daniel day-Lewis, who in one sequence is based on pairs of Gammarelli socks in Bishop’s purple. “There are people asking about purple socks because he wore them in the movie.”
“You have them in women’s thirty-seven?” asked the girl.
“No, Miss,” Gammarelli, the lawyer said. “I’m sorry. Only men.”
Back outside, the sun came out. Street musician, playing the cello, was grinding your way through Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” Bach Partita, “stairway to heaven”. Heading in the direction of the Pantheon was a young priest in a cassock beautifully cut clerical hat called the saturno is not for the similarity of the coloring of the planet and the bag. Seemingly lost in his own thoughts, and intentions for the ice cream he ate, he seemed to have not noticed heads turning as he walked to the temple.
Sourse: newyorker.com
