The Clergy Couture
Practical guides to vestments, liturgical colours, clergy shirts, stoles, habits and their care, written for priests, pastors, deacons and sacristans.
Custom means made to measure, not bespoke: your collar, chest, sleeve and length on the maker's pattern. What changes, what the trade charges for it, why a made-to-order workshop charges nothing extra, and the three cases where it pays.
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Priest and bishop: round the neck, straight, ends level, under the chasuble. Deacon: left shoulder to right hip, fastened. Over a surplice, always straight....
No rubric defines the word "set", so the piece count is trade convention. Here is what a set of three, four or five normally...
Collar first: neck plus two fingers, rounded up to the half inch. Then slim, classic or full cut by the shape of your body,...
Black is right everywhere. Purple belongs to bishops, scarlet to cardinals, and grey, blue and white to anyone. Which shade means what in the...
Warm water and washing-up liquid does most of it. What to use on scuffs and ink, why the dishwasher warps a plastic collar, how...
The sleeve and the wearer settle it. A guide to the alb, surplice, cotta and rochet: how long each is, how it fastens, who...
Vesture by tradition for a funeral Mass, a service, a committal and a memorial, plus the cope at the graveside, what a family may...
White in the Roman rite, usually red in Anglican and Methodist use. Colour by tradition, what the embroidered symbols mean, how deacon and priest...
Sweep, sleeve, cloth weight and length, set out plainly. What fullness costs, which sleeve suits a minister who serves communion, how a robe behaves...
The layers nobody writes down: shirt and trousers under the cassock, whether a cassock goes under an alb, what the amice is really for,...
Red does two jobs — the fire of the Spirit and the blood of the martyrs — which is why it is the most...
Alb and white stole in most robed traditions, a suit or gown in others, and business dress for a civil celebrant. Colour, the cope,...
The black gown is academic dress and marks the ministry of the Word. The alb is baptismal and takes the season's colour. Where each...
A priority-ordered buying list for the newly ordained: what is needed on day one, what the parish already owns, what arrives as a gift,...
A gift is not expected at an ordination, and most of the obvious ones are already covered. What the ordinand already has, what gets...
A chasuble, a stole, hangings and — if you keep Gaudete — rose. What an Advent set contains piece by piece, how the colour...
Violet is the Roman norm and blue is now standard across much of Episcopal, Lutheran and Methodist practice. Here is what each body publishes,...
Wash temperatures fabric by fabric, how to lift the grey line at the neckband, what to do about foundation transfer and underarm yellowing, and...
A chasuble needs two numbers: centre-back length from the shoulder fold to the hem, and width across the garment laid flat. No chest, waist...
The 33-button tradition is a devotional convention, not a rubric. Here is what the documents actually regulate, what the other counts mean, and what...
Wax, wine, oil, blood and ink each need a different method, and treating them all the same is how a stain becomes permanent. Here...
Which fibre suits your church, not the catalogue photograph. Polyester, wool, silk and viscose compared on weight, drape, breathability, creasing, cleaning and how each...
Most adult stoles are cut between 40 and 50 inches as a half-length, measured from the centre back of the neck to one end....
A side-by-side comparison of the two commonest clergy shirt collars: how each looks under vestments, how each wears over a three-hour service, what each...
