Along with the red serge uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, there is perhaps no other official ensemble as instantly recognizable as the insignia of the Swiss Guards, the elite cadre that has protected the pope for more than five centuries.
With a striking combination of bold colors and a Renaissance inspired design, the blue, red and mustard yellow stripes create a clear contrast. From the double jacket with high collar of the dress and jacket with a tight lapel to the puffy sleeves and billowy pantaloons, it is all designed in detail.
For nearly three decades, the uniform of the Swiss Guard has been crafted – every detail supervised – by Ety Cicioni, 52, the Vatican's chief tailor.
These fine vestments will be on full display 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 pardons that devout Catholics believe free them from temporal punishment for sins – will be granted, by the pope, flanked by Swiss Guards, leading dozens of ceremonies and celebrations.
“We have hardly changed the dress in over a hundred years,” said Cicioni, from his small Vatican tailor, behind the Porta Sant'Anna main entrance to Vatican City where the Guard of the -Switzerland takes note. “The challenge is to keep the dress the same,” as some materials, fabrics and sewing techniques have become obsolete.
“You have to draw each piece precisely and make the best cut to minimize waste,” Cicioni said.
Tailoring for the guards – and the stars
Dressed in a crisp, fitted suit, Cicioni glides through the restaurant with a graceful economy of movement – past spools of colored thread on wall racks and under high rails where half-finished jackets hang like festival streams.
Framed photos of the tailor, his wife and two children with Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis confirm his more than a quarter of a century of Vatican sartorial service. This is Ciconi's second time as a tailor in the Jubilee year, which comes every 25 years.
Every year, Ciconi and seven other tailors in the shop complete 120 dresses: 60 for winter, 60 for summer. Both are made from high quality wool sourced from Biella, a town in the northern Piedmont region known for producing the finest woolen clothing in the world.
Each dress consists of 154 pieces of fabric, some of which are sewn by hand.
Ciconi estimates his dealer has made more than 3,000 Swiss Guard uniforms. Groups of a dozen or so new guards arrive three times a year: January, June and September. Applicants must be Catholic Swiss men, unmarried between 19 and 30, at least 174 cm (5'8”) tall, and have completed military training in Switzerland.
The present day version of the uniform dates back to 1914, when the Commander of the Swiss Guard Jules Repond studied photographs of early 16th century ceremonial dress and armor, giving a included the styles of the Medici and Della Rovere families who ruled Rome, and designed uniforms incorporating key elements.
The weight of the winter uniform is over three kilograms, and the lighter woolen summer version still contributes to a lot of sweat in the sweltering summers of Rome. To protect the seam on the cape from sweat erosion, a bleeding problem, Cicioni added a lining – his only major change.
But Cicioni has not only created uniforms for the Vatican: he has also lent his knowledge to the film industry for papal-themed films: The Young Pope and The New Pope TV series, both directed by Paolo Sorrentino; The Two Popes by Francesco Meirelles; and The Pope's Exorcist by Julius Avery.
“It's the only thing I didn't do Conclave,” he said, adding with a smile, “I hope to see him soon and I will be looking closely at the costumes.”
The job was offered with no test required
Despite the years of sewing for the Holy See, Cicioni says that leading the Vatican's sartorial office was never something he envisioned for himself.
Hailing from a small coastal town on the Adriatic coast in the Abruzzo region, Cicioni grew up with a mother who managed a dry cleaner and did a small repair job on clothes. With the trade in the family – his three sisters are dressmakers – he went to work for a Minister high fashion atelier that was later acquired by Gucci.
In the fall of 1997, a man from the area who worked for the Vatican asked him if he would be interested in interviewing to replace the Vatican head 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 I said that I was working in a different field and I couldn't do my job with old things.”
A month and a half later, he received a call from the Vatican asking him what equipment he needed to do the job. 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 imagine it was a higher power. “
Cicioni's wife, Lucia Marcellosi, joined him in the atelier once they were married, a few years after he started at the Vatican. She works with Cicioni, today, cutting and sewing new uniforms for the new Swiss Guard soldiers who are going to arrive in the new year.
Black market clothing
The Vatican jealously protects the uniforms, banning their resale and allowing the Swiss Guards to hang them up only after five years of service. Even then, the guards must sign a contract promising that, when they die, they will be buried in uniform or as a legacy to the Swiss association of former Swiss Guards.
“They found the children or grandchildren of the Swiss Guards trying to sell the uniforms on Ebay,” Cicioni said. “So the Vatican bought the uniforms back and enforced the rule.”
Old uniforms that cannot be recycled are cut into small pieces, often as a task assigned to the Swiss Guards as punishment for being late for duty.
Cicioni says he believes Swiss Guard uniforms will last long into the future, but worries the kind of patience needed to train and nurture young talent in high-end tailoring is not enough. 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, that's a huge cost in terms of lost time and energy.” . But you have to take the risk if you want this craft to last.”
His real dream, he says, is to open a tailoring school, passing on the skills, secrets, and satisfaction that shaped his family's life to future generations.
