Reimagining How to Dress a Pope
The New York Times
In the film “Conclave,” the costume designer Lisy Christl clothed an army of catty cardinals, from their miters down to their quirky glasses.
Set in Vatican City, Edward Berger’s new movie, “Conclave,” is ostensibly about a clique of catty cardinals jockeying to become the next pope.
Centered around a tortured Cardinal Lawrence, played by Ralph Fiennes, and also starring Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave” is rife with scenes of cigarette-smoking clergymen meeting in shadow-filled stairwells, gasp-inducing vote counts and midnight break-ins. The movie (based on a 2016 novel by Robert Harris) falls somewhere between a John le Carré novel and an episode of “Survivor.”
But “Conclave,” in many ways, is also about clothes. Mr. Berger’s camera lingers on close-ups of the cardinal’s gargantuan gold crucifixes, his ruby-red robes and his art-teacherlike glasses. In one sequence, two holy men poke fun at the supersized scale of a former pope’s vestments (again, these are some catty clerics). Later, a crucial confrontation takes place in a cloakroom.
It’s of little surprise that a film set in the Vatican would be so preoccupied with style. From their ritualistic robes to their footwear and statement socks, religious figures like priests, cardinals and popes have always had a striking, idiosyncratic fashion sense.
Row after row of cardinals in identical crimson robes makes for a visually stunning film, but one that, as the “Conclave” costume designer Lisy Christl explained, was a challenge to design for.
