Filippo Sorcinelli in his workshop, in Santarcangelo di Romagna, Italy. PIERRE TERRAZ FOR LE MONDE
"Maria, how's Robert's chasuble coming along?" The question, directed at one of the workshop's embroiderers, slips from Filippo Sorcinelli's mouth as though he were inquiring about an old friend. In reality, the designer is referring to the former cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, now better known as Leo XIV.
"I've known Pope Leo XIV for 30 years. We first met in 1995 in the city of Tolentino, not far from my hometown. At the time, I was playing organ in churches and he was an Augustinian friar in the region," said Sorcinelli, his head buried in a drawer overflowing with spools of thread in his Santarcangelo di Romagna workshop. (Prevost joined the Order of Saint Augustine in 1977 and was ordained a priest in 1982.)
It was only natural that the new pontiff chose him to create the sacred vestment he wore on the day of his ordination at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome on May 8. "We had to work quickly. Fortunately, I already knew his size and build!" the tailor joked, lifting a reel of gold thread and pressing it against a strip of green silk to assess the color combination.
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