section_path: Papacy: 2005–2013/Attire
section_name: Attire
paragraph_text: Attire
  
  Benedict re-introduced several papal garments which had fallen into disuse. He resumed the use of the traditional red papal shoes, which had been used since Roman times by popes but which had fallen into disuse during the pontificate of John Paul II. Contrary to the initial speculation of the press that the shoes had been made by the Italian fashion house Prada, the Vatican announced that the shoes were provided by the Pope's personal shoemaker.
  
  The journalist Charlotte Allen described Benedict as "the pope of aesthetics": "He has reminded a world that looks increasingly ugly and debased that there is such a thing as the beautiful – whether it's embodied in a sonata or an altarpiece or an embroidered cope or the cut of a cassock – and that earthly beauty ultimately communicates a beauty that is beyond earthly things."
  
  Benedict re-introduced several papal garments which had fallen into disuse. He resumed the use of the traditional red papal shoes, which had been used since Roman times by popes but which had fallen into disuse during the pontificate of John Paul II. Contrary to the initial speculation of the press that the shoes had been made by the Italian fashion house Prada, the Vatican announced that the shoes were provided by the Pope's personal shoemaker.
  
  The journalist Charlotte Allen described Benedict as "the pope of aesthetics": "He has reminded a world that looks increasingly ugly and debased that there is such a thing as the beautiful – whether it's embodied in a sonata or an altarpiece or an embroidered cope or the cut of a cassock – and that earthly beauty ultimately communicates a beauty that is beyond earthly things."