Dressing the Pope’s Bodyguards: Meet the master tailor behind one of the world’s best-dressed forces

Besides the flaming red sergeant’s uniform, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has no other official ensemble as instantly recognizable as the Swiss Guards, the elite cadre that has protected the Pope for more than five centuries.

A striking combination of bold colors and Renaissance-inspired design, his signature blue, red and mustard-yellow stripes create a vivid contrast. From the jersey’s high-collared doublet and tight-fitting jacket to its puffy sleeves and billowing trousers, everything is precisely tailored.

For almost three decades, the uniforms of the Swiss Guard have been made by the Vatican’s chief tailor, 52-year-old Ety Cicioni – with every detail being monitored.

More than 32 million pilgrims are expected to flock to Rome for the Vatican’s 2025 Jubilee Year celebrations. During that time, plenary indulgences — spiritual pardons that devout Catholics believe free them from temporary punishment for sins — will lead dozens of ceremonies and celebrations alongside the Pope, accompanied by the Swiss Guard.

“For more than a century, we have hardly changed the uniform,” said Cicioni of the humble Vatican tailor’s atelier, hidden behind the main entrance to Vatican City’s Porta Sant’Anna, where the Swiss Guard stands at attention. “The challenge was keeping the uniform the same,” as certain materials, fabrics and sewing techniques were outdated.

“You have to precisely weigh each piece and optimize the cut to reduce waste,” Cicioni said.

Match the guards and stars

Dressed in a sharp, tailored suit, Cicioni glides through the atelier with a graceful economy of movement—spools past brightly colored threads on wall rollers and beneath tall rails where half-finished jackets hang like holiday fonts.

Framed photos of the tailor, his wife and two children with Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis attest to his more than a quarter-century of sartorial service at the Vatican. This will be Cicioni’s second time serving as a tailor during the Jubilee year that comes every 25 years.

Each year, Cicioni and the shop’s seven other tailors complete 120 uniforms: 60 for winter and 60 for summer. Both are made from high-quality wool from Biella in the northern Piedmont region, famous for producing the world’s finest woolen textiles.

Each shape consists of 154 pieces of fabric, some of which are sewn by hand.

Cicioni estimates that his atelier has made more than 3,000 Swiss Guard uniforms. Groups of several new rangers arrive three times a year: January, June and September. Candidates must be Catholic, single Swiss men between the ages of 19 and 30, at least 174 cm (5’8″) tall, and have undergone military training in Switzerland.

Today’s version of the uniform dates back to 1914, when Jules Repond, commandant of the Swiss Guard, studied early 16th-century drawings of ceremonial and military dress, studied the styles of the Medici and Della Rovere families that ruled Rome, and designed the uniform. includes the main elements.

The winter uniform weighs more than three kilograms, while the light woolen summer version still helps you sweat a lot in the hot Roman summers. Cicioni added a lining to the seams of his hat to protect it from sweat erosion—his only significant modification.

But Cicioni not only created uniforms for the Vatican, but also lent his expertise to the film business for papal films: Young Pope and The new Pope TV series, both directed by Paolo Sorrentino; Two Popes by Francesco Meirelles; and The Pope’s Exorcist By Julius Avery.

“It was the only thing I didn’t do Conclave“, he said, adding with a smile, “I hope to see it soon, and I’ll be watching the suits very closely.”

Offered job with no test required

Despite sewing for the Holy See for years, Cicioni says she was never meant to lead the Vatican’s sartorial office.

From a small coastal town on the Adriatic coast in the Abruzzo region, Cicioni grew up with a repair mother who ran a dry cleaner and made small clothes. With the craft in the family—three of her sisters are tailors—she went to work high fashion atelier later acquired by Gucci.

In the fall of 1997, a local man working at the Vatican asked him if he would be interested in interviewing to replace the Vatican’s chief tailor, who was retiring.

“When I got here, they were still using old-fashioned foot-pedal sewing machines,” Cicioni said. “I thanked them for the opportunity, but told them that I worked in a different field and could not do my job with such antiques.”

A month and a half later, he received a call from the Vatican, asking what equipment was needed to do this work. He faxed them a list and half an hour later they called to offer him the job, no test required.

“I still don’t know why I was chosen,” said the devout Catholic. “I can only think it’s a higher power.”

Cicioni’s wife, Lucia Marcellosi, joined him in the workshop after they married, a few years after he began working at the Vatican. Today, he works alongside Cicioni, cutting and sewing new uniforms for the new Swiss Guard recruits who will arrive in the new year.

Black market form

The Vatican guards the uniforms jealously, prohibiting their resale and allowing Swiss guards to hang them only after five years of service. Even then, guards are required to sign a contract promising to either be buried in uniform upon death or to bequeath it to Switzerland’s ex-Swiss Guard association.

“They discovered that the children or grandchildren of the Swiss Guard were trying to sell the uniforms on Ebay,” Cicioni said. “So the Vatican took back the uniforms and enforced the rule.”

Old uniforms that cannot be recycled are cut into small pieces, as is often the task given to the Swiss Guards as punishment for being late to duty.

Cicioni says he believes the Swiss Guard uniform will hold up well into the future, but worries the patience required to nurture and nurture young talent in high-end tailoring is largely a thing of the past.

“When we bring in a new person, it can take years to figure out if they have what it takes,” he said. “And if they don’t, it’s a huge cost in terms of lost time and energy. But if you want this craft to survive, you have to take the risk.”

She says that her real dream is to open a tailoring school, to pass on to future generations the skills, secrets and satisfaction that shaped her and her family’s life.