Along with the blazing-red serge uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, there is perhaps no other official ensemble as instantly recognizable as that of the Swiss Guards, the elite cadre that has been safeguarding the pope for more than five centuries.
A striking combination of bold colors and Renaissance-inspired design, its signature blue, red and mustard-yellow stripes create a vivid contrast. From the uniform’s high-collared doublet and tight-hugging jacket to its puffy sleeves and billowy pantaloons, all of it is tailored with precision.
For almost three decades, the Swiss Guard uniforms have been crafted — every detail overseen — by Ety Cicioni, 52, the Vatican’s head tailor.
These meticulously crafted uniforms 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 absolve them of temporal punishment for sins — will be granted, with the pope, flanked by the Swiss Guards, leading dozens of ceremonies and celebrations.
“We’ve hardly made an alteration to the uniform in more than a century,” said Cicioni, from his modest Vatican tailor’s atelier, tucked behind the Porta Sant’Anna main entrance to Vatican City where the Swiss Guard stand at attention. “The challenge has been to keep the uniform the same,” as certain materials, fabrics and sewing techniques have become obsolete.Â
“You have to draw each piece precisely and optimize the cut to reduce waste,” said Cicioni.
Tailor to the guards — and the stars
Dressed in a crisp, fitted suit, Cicioni glides through the atelier with graceful economy of movement — past spools of brightly coloured thread on wall racks and under high rails where half-finished jackets hang like festive streamers.
Framed photos of the tailor, his wife and two children with Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis attest to his more than quarter century of Vatican sartorial service. This will be Cicioni’s second time serving as tailor during a Jubilee year, which comes every 25 years.
Each year, Cicioni and seven other tailors in the shop complete 120 uniforms: 60 for the winter, 60 for the summer. Both are made of top-quality wool sourced from Biella, a town in the northern Piedmont region famed for producing the best wool textiles in the world.
Each uniform is composed of 154 pieces of fabric, some hand sewn together.Â
Cicioni estimates his atelier 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. Candidates must be Catholic, unmarried Swiss men aged 19 to 30, at least 174 cm (5’8″) tall, and have completed military training in Switzerland.
Today’s version of the uniform dates back to 1914, when Swiss Guard Commandant Jules Repond studied paintings of the ceremonial and military dress of the early 16th century, homing in on the styles of the Medici and Della Rovere families who ruled Rome, and designing a uniform incorporating key elements.
The winter uniform weighs over three kilograms, while the lighter wool summer version still contributes to plenty of sweating during Rome’s sweltering summers. To protect the stitching on the cape from sweat erosion, a niggling problem, Cicioni added lining — his only significant modification.
But Cicioni hasn’t only created uniforms for the Vatican: he’s also lent his expertise to the movie business for papal-themed films: The Young Pope and The New Pope TV series, both by directed by Paolo Sorrentino; The Two Popes by Francesco Meirelles; and The Pope’s Exorcist by Julius Avery.
“The only one I didn’t do was the Conclave,” he said, adding with a laugh, “I’m hoping to see it soon and will be watching the costumes very closely.”
Offered the job with no trial required Â
Despite his years of sewing for the Holy See, Cicioni says leading the Vatican’s sartorial office was never something he had envisioned for himself.
Hailing from a small coastal town on the Adriatic coast in the region of Abruzzo, Cicioni grew up with a mother who managed a dry cleaner and did small dressmaking repairs. With the craft in the family — his three sisters are dressmakers — he went to work for an alta moda atelier that was later acquired by Gucci.
In the fall of 1997, a local man who worked for the Vatican asked him if he would be interested in being interviewed to replace the Vatican’s head tailor, who was retiring.
“When I got here, they were still using old-fashioned foot-pedal sewing machines,” said Cicioni. “I thanked them for the opportunity, but said I worked in a different realm and couldn’t possibly do my job with such antiques.”
A month and a half later, he got a call from the Vatican asking him what equipment he needed to do the job. He faxed them a list and a half hour later they phoned to offer him the job, no trial required.
“I still don’t know why I was chosen,” said the devout Catholic. “I can only think it was a higher power at play.”
Cicioni’s wife, Lucia Marcellosi, joined him in the atelier once they married, a few years after he began at the Vatican. She works alongside Cicioni, today, cutting and stitching new uniforms for fresh Swiss Guard recruits set to arrive in the new year.Â
Black market uniforms
The Vatican jealously guards the uniforms, banning their resale and allowing Swiss Guards to hang onto them only after five years of service. Even then, the guards are required to sign a contract promising that upon death, they will either be buried in the uniform or bequeath it to a Swiss association of former Swiss Guards.
“They discovered the children or grandchildren of Swiss Guards trying to sell the uniforms on Ebay,” said Cicioni. “So the Vatican bought the uniforms back and implemented the rule.”
Old uniforms that can’t be recycled are cut into small pieces, often as a task assigned to Swiss Guards as punishment for being late to their duty.
Cicioni says he believes the Swiss Guard uniform will endure well into the future, but he worries the kind of patience required to train and nurture young talent in high-level tailoring is largely a thing of the past.
“When we bring in a new person, it can require years to understand 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 survive.”
His true dream, he says, is to open a tailoring school, passing on the skills, secrets, and satisfaction that have shaped his and his family’s life, to future generations.