Apart from the bright red uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, there is perhaps no other official uniform as recognizable as the Swiss Guard, the elite cadre that has protected the pope for more than five centuries.
A striking combination of bold colors and Renaissance-inspired design, while the distinctive blue, red and mustard yellow stripes create a vivid contrast. From the high-collared doublet and slim jacket to the puffed sleeves and puffy pantaloons, everything is precisely tailored.
For almost thirty years, the Swiss Guard uniforms were sewn – with attention to every detail – by 52-year-old Ety Cicioni, the Vatican's chief tailor.
These carefully crafted uniforms will be on display in all their glory as more than 32 million pilgrims are expected to flock to Rome for the Vatican's 2025 Jubilee Year celebrations. During this time, plenary indulgences – spiritual forgiveness that devout Catholics believe absolve them from the temporal punishment of their sins – will be granted, and the pope, flanked by the Swiss Guard, will preside over dozens of ceremonies and celebrations.
“We have hardly changed our uniform in over a century,” Cicioni said from his modest Vatican tailoring atelier, tucked behind the main entrance of Porta Sant'Anna to the Vatican, where the Swiss Guard stands at attention. “The challenge was to keep the uniform unchanged” as some materials, fabrics and sewing techniques became obsolete.
“You have to draw each piece precisely and optimize the cutting to reduce waste,” Cicioni said.
Align yourself with the guardians and stars
Dressed in an elegant, tailored suit, Cicioni glides through the atelier with graceful economy of movement – past spools of colorful thread on wall racks and under high railings where half-finished jackets hang like Christmas streamers.
Framed photos of the tailor, his wife and two children with Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis are testimony to his more than a quarter-century of service as a tailor in the Vatican. This will be Cicioni's second job as a tailor in the jubilee year, which occurs every 25 years.
Each year, Cicioni and seven other tailors at the plant complete 120 uniforms: 60 for winter and 60 for summer. Both are made of the highest quality wool from Biella, a city in northern Piedmont, famous for producing the best woolen textiles in the world.
Each uniform is made of 154 pieces of fabric, some hand-stitched.
Cicioni estimates that over 3,000 Swiss Guard uniforms were made in his workshop. Groups of a dozen or so new guards arrive three times a year: in January, June and September. Applicants must be Catholic, unmarried Swiss, between the ages of 19 and 30, at least 174 cm (5 ft 8 in) tall and have completed military training in Switzerland.
Today's version of the uniform dates back to 1914, when Jules Repond, Commander of the Swiss Guard, studied paintings of early 16th-century ceremonial and military dress, drawing on the style of Rome's ruling Medici and Della Rovere families, and designing the uniform to incorporate key elements.
The winter uniform weighs over three kilograms, while the lighter, woolen summer version still causes profuse sweating during the hot summer in Rome. To protect the seams of the cape from sweat erosion, a troublesome problem, Cicioni added a lining, his only significant modification.
But Cicioni didn't just create uniforms for the Vatican: he also shared his knowledge with the film industry, creating papal-themed films: Young Pope AND The new pope TV series, both directed by Paolo Sorrentino; Two popes by Francesco Meirelles; AND Exorcist of the Pope by Julius Avery.
“The only thing I didn't do was this Conclave– he said, adding with a laugh – “I hope to see it soon and I will be watching the costumes very carefully.”
I was offered a job without a trial period
Despite years of sewing for the Holy See, Cicioni says he never imagined running the Vatican's tailoring office.
Originally from a small seaside town on the Adriatic coast in the Abruzzo region, Cicioni grew up with a mother who managed a dry cleaning business and performed minor tailoring repairs. With crafts in the family – his three sisters are seamstresses – he went to work high fashion atelier, which was later taken over by Gucci.
In the fall of 1997, a local man working for the Vatican asked him if he would be interested in interviewing to replace the Vatican's chief tailor who was retiring.
“When I came here, they were still using old-fashioned pedal-operated sewing machines,” Cicioni said. “I thanked them for the opportunity, but told them I worked in a different industry and couldn't do my job with antiques like that.”
A month and a half later, he called from the Vatican asking what equipment he needed to do the job. He faxed them the list, and half an hour later they called and offered him the job without a trial period.
“I still don't know why I was chosen,” said the devout Catholic. “I can only think there was a force majeure involved.”
Cicioni's wife, Lucia Marcellosi, joined him in the studio after their wedding, a few years after he began working at the Vatican. He is currently working with Cicioni, cutting and sewing new uniforms for the new Swiss Guard recruits who are scheduled to arrive in the new year.
Black market uniforms
The Vatican jealously guards the uniforms, prohibiting their resale and allowing the Swiss Guard to keep them only after five years of service. Even then, guards are required to sign a contract in which they promise that after their death they will be buried in their uniform or donate it to the Swiss association of former Swiss Guards.
“They discovered that the children or grandchildren of the Swiss Guard were trying to sell the uniforms on eBay,” Cicioni said. “So the Vatican bought the uniforms and implemented the rule.”
Old uniforms that cannot be recycled are cut into small pieces, often as part of a task assigned to the Swiss Guard as punishment for being late for duty.
Cicioni says he believes the Swiss Guard uniform will last well into the future, but worries that the patience required to train and nurture young talent in high-level tailoring is largely a thing of the past.
“When we hire a new person, it can take years to understand if they have what it takes,” he said. “And if they don't, there will be a huge cost in wasted time and energy. But if you want this ship to survive, you have to take risks.”
His real dream, he says, is to open a tailoring school where he can pass on to future generations the skills, secrets and satisfaction that shaped his and his family's lives.