Filippo Sorcinelli made his first garment for the late Pope Francis in 2013. When the call came from the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, the master tailor and artist was surprised and emotional. Everything had to be completed in an extremely short period of time, and according to the Pope’s own precise instructions. Sorcinelli was immediately inspired from a recent visit to the Vatican, and created a simple cream, white, and gold piece for Pope Francis’ historic first mass as Pontiff.
“The news of Pope Francis’s death caused me deep sorrow,” Sorcinelli shares with Vogue. “For someone who is a Christian like me, the figure of the Pope is a central pillar of life.” Pope Francis, now lying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican and with his funeral on Saturday, April 26, wears a white silk and gold trimmed mitre created by Sorcinelli’s Atelier Lavs. Over the years, Sorcinelli’s designs have reflected the late Pope’s more humble personality, with garments inspired by Italian Renaissance painter Giotto’s medieval fresco cycles—especially those in Assisi, in a nod to the saint name the Pope took.
Sorcinelli is an Italian artist himself, who hails from Mondolfo in the Marche region and grew up in a family of weavers and seamstresses. As well as making vestments, he is also a perfumer, photographer, and painter. At 13, Sorcinelli became an organist in cathedrals through Fano, Rimini, and San Benedetto del Tronto. He went on to study sacred art and historical weaving at the Museo del Tessuto in Prato. In 2018, the Diocesan Museum of Milan held a retrospective of his work, and in 2021, he received the Art and Liturgy Prize for innovation in the field of sacred vestments from the Pontifical Liturgical Institute.
Today, Sorcinelli is a tall, handsome, tattooed gay man who dresses in chic, sharp suits, draped shirts, and work pants—all black. His atelier is in a village called Santarcangelo di Romagna in Rimini. Faith has long been a part of his life. “I always carry in my heart my first steps as a child: I used to accompany my mother to clean the parish church in my hometown,” says Sorcinelli. “These simple and humble gestures actually held a great meaning and became the signature of my life. It’s easy to imagine the curiosity of a child inside a large ancient church, full of stimuli, artistic matter, faith, fabrics, incense, and music…everything spoke powerfully in one direction: Beauty.”
“To have faith, for me, is to have benefited from this human richness. Creating sacred art today means giving this message to the world. I couldn’t say I’m alive today if I hadn’t experienced those moments.”
In 2001, when he was 23, Sorcinelli received a phone call from a friend he hadn’t heard from in a long time. He informed Sorcinelli that he was to be ordained as a priest. “I instinctively said, ‘Don’t buy anything, I want to design your first vestment myself!’” he says.
“Immediately, I recalled those childhood moments of opening the drawers in the sacristy, and I decided that the style which best represented me came from a powerful historical period: the Middle Ages—architecture, sculpture, painting. This period has a deep-rooted culture of symbolism, form, geometry [and] it avoids the temptation of mere decoration.” The Archbishop of Genoa wore one of his designs in a televised service in 2003, which sparked a flurry of orders across the Catholic liturgy worldwide. Today the atelier runs mostly on commissions.
Sorcinelli’s striking designs stand out in the contemporary world of liturgical garments for his focus on the medieval style, which is reinterpreted using modern materials and contemporary technology. Across almost 25 years, Sorcinelli has strived to achieve a sartorial narrative that is in communion with the church. “[We have] deep respect for the Church, our primary client, and the awareness that we are not just making theatrical costumes,” he says.
In 2007, he began dressing Pope Benedict XVI—designing more than 50 ornate and detailed robes over his tenure—in what were very different styles than his papal successor. It is important to Sorcinelli to reflect the sensibilities of each individual Pontiff. Sorcinelli has always convened with the Office on the details of the Pope’s vestments, rather than directly with the Pope. (Some more transgressive designs have been vetoed). But informal encounters have happened with Benedict and Francis. “They have occurred, but I keep them in my heart,” he says.
“Over time, I developed sensitivity that helped me perceive [Pope Francis’s] character traits and preferences,” he explains.
Sorcinelli recalls one of his favorite garments he created for Pope Francis: Robes for the apostolic journey to L’Aquila and for the concluding Mass. “I was present at the opening of the Holy Door in the Basilica of Collemaggio—I almost never attend,” he explains. It was a moving moment. He arrived at 4a.m. to set up the vestments in the room where the Pope would dress. Sorcinelli described the look as maintaining a sense of “noble simplicity,” which was “so strongly called for by the Second Vatican Council and so dear to Pope Francis.”
The evolution of style is inevitably influenced by wider culture, technology, political and social change—and that’s also true of the aesthetics of the sacred institution and its guardians. Sorcinelli strictly uses Italian silks and wools and remains reticent to too much modernization. “There is the risk of massification,” he says, “which can endanger the timeless, eternal nature that sacred rites are meant to convey through beauty.”
“Transcending the everyday” is serious business in the sacred art. “The Catholic Church must maintain its identity and not fully conform to the modern world,” so Sorcinelli says. “This means being faithful to Christ’s teachings, while also engaging with the world. The Church is in the world, but not of the world.”
The evolution of sacred vestments worn by ministers during religious celebrations has ancient origins and a complex history, with changes in materials, form, and meaning over the centuries.
“In the last 60 years, there’s been a desire to experiment, but also a need to study and deepen our understanding—not just of what a liturgical vestment is, but its place in art history,” Sorcinelli says. There are now ateliers across the world making vestments for various levels of clergymen and women.
“I’ve always loved talking about creation as service: Offering oneself, understanding that your work can become a mission filled with values,” Sorcinelli says. “That also means interpreting your craft as a continuation of your faith. All of this must prevail over pure aesthetics or provocative gestures. I repeat: We must be aware that we are not making stage costumes when working on liturgical vestments.”
As well as liturgical vestments, Sorcinelli has been running his luxury perfume house UNUM since 2013. The first fragrance he created, LAVS, is a spicy, oak-forward scent that recalls a darkened oratory: A version of the one he spritzed on papal garments before they were delivered. Others from his collection are more erotic and playful: Slightly-b!tch is a leathery, citrus parfum. Sorcinelli sees the throughline: “The world of perfume originates from ritual, from liturgy, from the need to describe God. The Bible is rich with moments where scent plays a central role—representing transcendence, prayer, and even human drama. For me, it became a powerful way to express myself more concretely through every facet of my life.”
As he brings together his liturgical designs, the queer and sensual elements of his work, his identity, and his faith, Sorcinelli stays confident in reconciling his beliefs with his sexuality. “I am a man of faith, but I am not immune to pain or joy,” he says. “I’m someone who longs for respect, constantly fighting the absurd battle between who I am and what others expect me to be. But one thing is certain: Perfume has made me free. And freedom isn’t just doing whatever you want—it’s doing what you must. This often clashes with a church environment full of labels, ceremonies, and yes, clichés.” Over the years, several gay priests have reached out to Sorcinelli to share how grateful they are for him.
Sorcinelli describes his faith and Catholicism today like “walking through a grand, abandoned cathedral. I recognize its majesty, the echo of ancient prayers, the beauty of its frescoes and naves, but I wander among the columns searching for something—perhaps a sound, a scent, a light,” he reflects.
“Catholicism can be a source of immense, complex, even contradictory meanings,” he continues. “Its millennia-long breath can still touch people, even non-believers. It speaks of love, sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness—universal human experiences. But that’s exactly why today it faces a massive challenge: Remaining faithful to that depth without becoming rigid or exclusive.”
As for inclusivity? “The journey is still long,” Sorcinelli says. He believes there is a faction of the Church, especially under Pope Francis, that is genuinely trying to embrace more modern ideals. “Many places still make those who are different—in orientation, gender, or personal history— feel judged or excluded. For a religion founded on a God who dined with outcasts, that is a wound that cries out.”
Right now, Sorcinelli intends to watch the events unfold from afar, and has no plan to see Pope Francis lie in state. “At this moment, I’d rather watch from afar. I’m in a period of deep personal change and I need to understand what meaning lies behind this emotional state.”
He doesn’t know yet if he will also dress Pope Francis’s successor, but intends to continue evolving his artistic practice across his different mediums. “To be an artist, for me, is to live with an open wound that becomes language,” he says. “It’s a way of inhabiting the world with radical attentiveness—as if everything, even the smallest thing, could speak, reveal, vibrate with meaning.”
