Gay Fashion Designer for the Popes Discusses “Silent Theology” of Fabrics

Behind the styles of Pope Leo XIV, Pope Francis, and Pope Benedict XVI, there is one man: openly gay Italian designer Filippo Sorcinelli, whose designs landed Pope Leo among the Hollywood elite on Vogue’s Best Dressed list. “I have never seen faith and sexuality as a battle,” Sorcinelli says, “but as a creative tension that fuels my work.” 

Filippo Sorcinelli adjusts liturgical vestments designed for Pope Leo XIV.

Sorcinelli has been designing papal vestments for more than twenty years. He tells The Daily Mail that the looks and outfits aren’t about “personal taste, but about projecting authority and reinforcing the Church’s message.” He describes how each Pope’s style reflects a different identity:

“Each pontiff, like every priest, is a universe of symbols. His body becomes a visible word that asks to be clothed in forms and colors capable of reflecting the mission he embodies. Benedict XVI expressed a culture of roots, a refinement grounded in memory and tradition…. Francis chose the strength of a surprising simplicity, almost a Gospel provocation….Leo XIV manifests a desire to bring everything back to the centrality of Christ, making that axis the sign of a single path uniting past and future.”

Pope Leo’s look, Sorcinelli says, is “deliberately understated.” He continues:

“Nothing seems oriented toward spectacle: each visual choice contributes to building a language of reliability, balance and quiet authority….In Leo XIV, one senses a style born of a choice for measure, a composed bearing that speaks first of all of an ordered interiority and of authority.”

Designing for the Vatican, Sorcinelli says, isn’t really about fashion. He communicates the Pope’s identity and intentions through a “silent theology” of fabrics, forms, and colors. “The sacred garment does not serve the body, but illuminates the soul of the community,” he says. Pope Leo blends the new and the old, bringing back traditional cufflinks while also sporting a Chicago White Sox hat at a public appearance.

The designer also doesn’t collaborate directly with the Pope; rather, he communicates with the Vatican’s Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. The office examines his work and ensures it follows tradition and liturgical rules. The Church’s calendar governs choices like color, fabric, and symbols, and Sorcinelli designs within that framework. For that reason, he says the Vatican often approves his designs without major changes. 

Many people might wonder how Sorcinelli can design garments with such care and attention for an organization that can sometimes feel unwelcoming for queer people. But Sorcinelli doesn’t see it that way. His interest in working for the Vatican began as a child, when he helped his mother clean the local church. 

“Every act of care, every glance toward architecture, the organ, altarpieces, awakened in me the awareness that faith also lives in small attentions,” he remembers. He describes his experience in the church as one of acceptance. “No one has ever stopped me at the threshold of a church,” he says.

“And what does it mean to be openly gay?” Sorcinelli asks. “Perhaps it means embracing one’s story without fear and transforming it into creative language.” 

—Lynnzee Dick, New Ways Ministry, May 25, 2026