Clergy
Men Of The Cloth
This is about what Catholic priests wear. And what it might tell us about what we laypeople wear.
Let me make this clear: I am not here to talk about all the myriad controversies around the Catholic Church. Or the positions that the church has around abortion, divorce, or gay rights. I couldn’t possibly begin to get into that.
But whatever you think about the church, one cannot deny that priests just look fantastic. I mean look at that!
Ok well I mean this guy looks particularly good because he is not actually a priest. He is a male model. Because these images are from a catalog for priestly vestments. The funeral ones are probably my favorite:
So this is the fancy stuff a priest wears. Even though, day to day, some priests might wear a clerical collar, or some might wear a habit- Catholics all put on these clothes (known as vestments) when it’s time to lead mass. And they go in this order
There’s the alb, the long white gown.
Then the stole, the little skinny scarf.
And then the chasuble, the main event- this decorated poncho.
And as you might be able to guess, these things are not cheap. I mean even this simple chasuble here is $1,438.
So… is this.. ok? Is this a good use of funds? Why invest in clothes at all, when the church is supposed to be focusing on spirit and on community?
Truly, this is a question for all of us. For everyone who likes clothes. Why do these things matter? Should they not? I’m not going to give away the episode, but there were a lot of surprising parts to it, for me.
I spoke with Viktor Slabbinck- his family business has been making beautiful vestments for over a hundred years. He told me about the political symbolism in these chasubles, and why more conservative priests opt for chasubles without sleeves:
And I also got to visit Holy Rood, whose catalog this is. I love this catalog. But I love the company even more. You’ll hear why.
Next week I’m going to turn payments off on this substack and go mostly dark, but I just wanted to thank everyone who donated. You seriously didn’t have to do that, and it helped me tremendously. It meant a lot.
Ok. this is it from me for the year. I’m going to go disappear for a while and write this book. It’s not going to be Articles Of Interest: The Book. It’s about a very particular thing. But you know I’ll tell you all about it.
Sincerely,
Avery
PS-My friend is making an archive of worn denim and she’d love for you to submit your well-loved well-worn jeans. Fill out the Denim Archive form, and it’ll all be on denimarchive.org, launching early next month!
Beautiful! I loved this episode. Perhaps my favorite podcast episode ever. It was a delightfully original perspective and, as a practicing Catholic, I felt it was quite moving. Quoting Hans ur von Balthasar is going deep!
Long-time lurker, first time commenter. I deeply LOVE this episode because it reflects my own relationship with clothes. I got into cosplay because I wanted to BE the characters, and I was able to have a deeper appreciation of cloth, notions, patternmashing, sewing, stitch types, etc. I went from beauty of the clothes, to the goodness of sewing construction, to truth of the character.
It's the same thing for my fascination with 1390s - 1400s medieval women's clothing. It's a deeply specific timeperiod and the answer of "why that decade" is shallow: I LIKED that style most. The reason for my admiration of Christine de Pizan is, admittedly, less about her, and more because I picked the timeperiod she lived in to study for clothes. I started with Lord of the Rings fashion and Pre-Raphaelite medieval fashion (although that harkens more to a 11th - 13th century Bliaut), then I wanted to discover the ~historically accurate versions~ and it's really led me down a rabbit hole of, "Well, how was this constructed? What textiles, what professions helped make this?" and then gone deeper to, "Who were these people? What were their lives like, depending on their social class? What world orders/frames of reference did they inhabit? How did that influence their decision-making and the world they created that we now look back on and read about as history?" It's helped me have a deeper appreciation of who my ancestors were and how they shaped where we are now.
Thank you SO much for this episode. Just truly loved it a lot. <3
Good luck with the book writing - can't wait to see what it's about!