Pope Leo XIV has been named in Vanity Fair's best dressed list for 2026, the first time the magazine has released the ranking in a decade. The 70-year-old head of the Catholic church is among 70 names featured, praised for taking papal style “to heavenly heights”. His most memorable look is a simple white cassock styled with a pair of Nike trainers.
Innate Americanness
Vanity Fair's style correspondent José Criales-Unzueta, who worked on compiling the list, said he and the team were impressed by the “innate Americanness” of the way the pope dressed. The Chicago-born pontiff has carved out a style niche and garnered a loyal fashion following with his enthusiasm for both bespoke vestments and vintage fashion accessories.
Alongside trainers, he prefers simple black oxford shoes to the traditional red papal slippers. He wears a discontinued Swiss-made quartz watch, carries his own battered briefcase and in June 2025 popped a White Sox baseball cap over his papal cap for a general audience in St Peter's Square. For more formal occasions, he turns to the Italian designer Filippo Sorcinelli, who also created liturgical vestments for the previous popes Benedict XVI and Francis.
Gen Z Appeal
The Catholic church, with its long mastery of symbolism and optics, is experiencing an uptick driven by gen Z. For Leo, being featured in a publication that its global editorial director, Mark Guiducci, has described as a “magazine about personalities” and that feels “like the pantheon” works well with the papacy's own aim to position itself as a modern power.
“The world's embrace of this pope has been stunning to me,” said Robert Orsi, a professor of religious studies at Northwestern University in Illinois. Orsi pointed to Leo's criticism of AI and calls for peace as also speaking to gen Z. Carol Richardson, a professor of early modern art history at the University of Edinburgh, said the pope, who has his own Instagram account, would be aware of his inclusion on the list. “He and the people surrounding him are very savvy,” she said. “The majority will think it's fun. They will like the fact it has been noticed how busy he is, that he has to wear trainers to run around in. That he is working.”
Fashion Fascination
From Christian Lacroix ecclesiastical riffing in the 80s and the Met's Heavenly Bodies exhibition in 2018 to crucifixes and depictions of Christ on the most recent catwalks, the papacy has long fascinated fashion. Criales-Unzueta says its appeal lies in its vastness. “There is so much to take in and so much to find inspiration in.”
The pontiff is listed in Vanity Fair's “originals” division, a category of individuals commended by the magazine for being “the most outlandish and innovative dressers” with “a singular point of view”. Others on the list include the filmmaker Spike Lee and the singers Björk and Rosalía. Criales-Unzueta described the list as “an opportunity to showcase the way fashion and style are deeply embedded in culture and society” and that “style, good style, is a practice that is not reserved for celebrities or their stylists”.
Viral Moment
When Leo was first spotted last May wearing Nike trainers in a still from Leone a Roma, a Vatican-produced documentary that retraces his time in Rome before he became pope, the image instantly went viral. Many people mistook it as fake. It was compared to the AI-generated image of Pope Francis wearing an oversized Balenciaga puffer jacket, which has since been described as “the first real mass-level AI misinformation case”. Criales-Unzueta said that was the moment Leo became “a talking point in and outside of fashion”.
Trainer fans were quick to identify Leo's Nikes as a discontinued retro tennis-style shoe that was first sold in the 70s. “What a papal flex,” declared Esquire while some online users were quick to christen his style as “holy drip”. By the end of last year, Leo found himself featured alongside A$AP Rocky and Bad Bunny in Vogue's best dressed list while the New York Times named him as one of its 67 Most Stylish People of 2025.
Orsi said he had been thinking about what the trainers symbolised. “A sportiness? A familiarity with track and field, basketball courts, running?” he pondered. For him it was “a lightness on his feet, a readiness to move quickly to where he is needed the most” he said. “They signal that he is approachable, like a good coach, and also humble.”
