18th-century tailor shop prepares clothes for Francis
- Crafting a cassock is complicated
- Gammarelli family has clothed the last nine popes
- Family is secretive about ecclesiastical trade
ROME – Call it the second most secretive process going on in Rome this week.
While 115 cardinals met to select the next pope in the Sistine Chapel amid lock-and-key security and vows of secrecy, a process only slightly more transparent took place a mile to the east.
In Gammarelli, a small shop on Via di Santa Chiara, ecclesiastical tailors awaited news of the next pontiff, so they could get to work immediately on tailoring the cassocks, red shoes and other garments that will go along with his new office.
The Gammarelli family — four members work at the shop, along with a dozen other employees — is not new to the business of outfitting popes and other high-ranking clergy. It has been in business since 1798, providing vestments to the last nine popes, dating back to Pius X, who reigned from 1903 to 1914.
Lorenzo Gammarelli, 40, says it takes at least three days to make a cassock.
"The biggest problem is the cassock, because it's much more complicated than selecting a shoe size," says Gammarelli, part of the sixth generation of ecclesiastical tailors in his family.
When Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica as Pope Francis, the new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics wore an off-the-shelf cassock, the traditional white garment worn by popes.
Gammarelli says the shop made three different-sized cassocks ahead of time, one of which will almost surely fit the new pope. The shop has set aside six sizes of the red leather loafers Pope Benedict XVI made famous, again calculating that one pair will fit the newly elected pontiff.
"There are 11 different measurements that go into making the cassock fit correctly," Gammarelli said. "Assuming we are selected to provide the garments for the new Holy Father, the measurements will be taken within two or three days of his installation, and a few days after that, he'll have the clothes he needs."
The white cassocks, Gammarelli says, are made of wool, with silk sleeves, while the one-size-fits-all red mozzetta worn over the shoulders is made of velvet. Most of the details about the production are strict secrets. Cost for ecclesiastic garments is provided on a need-to-know basis, Gammarelli says.
Though the garments are made on-site, the Gammarellis won't reveal who makes the shoes they sell, what specific measurements go into making a perfect-fitting cassock, where the fabrics they use come from or any details about how they are stitched together.
"Let's just say we like to maintain a certain discretion," he says.
Popes are not the only customers here.
Conclave time, like any gathering of Vatican leadership from around the world, is a busy time at Gammarelli. Many clergy take advantage of being in Rome to order sets of garments. Since everything is done by hand, work is slow.
When the three papal cassocks were completed March 1, the day after Benedict's abdication, they went on display in the store's window for a few days. They have since been taken down to be sent to the Vatican. The nearly empty window shows only the pope's white skull cap.
Once notified by the Vatican, tailors will take the secret measurements needed to create the new pope's wardrobe. Unlike the service to all the other clerics who make up the shop's clientele, a papal measurement is the only time Gammarelli tailors make house calls.
"Priests, bishops and cardinals come to us," Gammarelli says. "But we go to the pope."
