From a General Audience on March 2006:
Yeah, I remember the article. As I see it, the author of the article was just trying to get an article submitted and made a big deal out of nothing. While Benedict XVI did have a regular tailor before becoming Pope, I'm sure he didn't want to offend the tailor that has been making clothes for the Popes for the past ??? years. As far as the designer accessories that he has been spotted wearing, I tend to think they were gifts. Having read about how prayerful and spiritual he is, I just can't imagine him knowing, or caring about, the difference between Fendi and Missoni.
It's funny though. I actually know something about textiles and it played into my running sheep for a while, and spinning and even weaving a little. And the reason was that the church I grew up in and was an altar boy in had unbelievably beautiful textiles. And being an altar boy I spent a lot of time on my knees inches away from them.
So I don't know all that much about fashion and designers, but when I worked the metal detector in Court I used to amaze the lady lawyers by being knowledgeable about what they had on.
So I can see an inquisitive and appreciative intellect having spent so much time in a place like Rome being pretty much on top of who makes the good stuff. It IS a real craft, after all, and textiles are wonderful. And that's before you get to design and tailoring and all the other amazing skills and visions which go into the stuff we drag over our nakedness in the morning.
Can you imagine what a gas it is that my wife wears a jacket the yarns of which I wove, some of the wool of which I sheared, carded, washed, spun, and dyed -- and then her mom, who is a nonpareil seamstress, designed and made into the final piece? -- I haven't done much useful in my life, but I made that cloth, darn it!
From a General Audience on March 2006: