Papa V Perpetueta Costume Analysis

With the elaborate schemes of the previous Papa´s costumes, it seems impossible to come up with something new once again, right? Well, obviously not to Tobias Forge, who has once again shocked and impressed his fans with the new costume creations of Papa V Perpetueta.

Between ornate purple patterns, a new grucifix and a shiny new silver mask, close to everything has changed for our new frontman, and thanks to a Rolling Stone UK Photoshoot, we have now seen a total of three of his new outfits.

In His Wardrobe:

First, and most importantly, the papal robes. A dark, brooding purple matches brass-colored grucifixes on his shoulder-cape (the pellegrina). Below, a long, grey-ish purple pallium with metal grucifixes sewn onto it hangs next to swathes of royal purple embroidered with a silver version of the grucifix, the sleeves of it matching the pallium in color and design. (Literally) topping off the look is the mitre, dominated by the large silver grucifix spanning almost the entire height and width of it.

But it’s not just the same old era IV grucifix, no, that’d be boring. Instead, it´s made entirely of metal skeletons in various poses such as the crucifixion pose itself.

Secondly, the outfit we have seen the least of so far: a high-collared suit-jacket, a fedora, gloves with long, black claws and curly black hair is all we can see from this close-up shot of the second outfit.

Last but for sure not least is the batwing-outfit, complete with a black-and-silver jacket with a batwing collar, black leather gloves and, of course, the wings, this time sharper and with black jewels set into them along the bones of each wing and semi-transparent fabric spanning between them.

Influences:

The whole papal outfit is very reminiscent of pope Benedict´s regalia, whose attire was a lot more “bling” than most of his predecessors´ and successors, wearing close to full regalia even to regular mass, where his successor rarely wore it even for events like Christmas.

The second costume hasn´t been fully revealed, but from what we can see, it looks quite similar to Freddy Krueger or the Phantom of the Opera, which ties in with the 2023 cover of the song of the same name on the EP Phantomime.

The third and last outfit seems similar to the outfit worn during Cirice for concerts, but upon closer inspection, the wings seem more dangerous and sharper, and it also seems like there is a jacket matching it instead of the usual stage outfit that the winged harness that is simply strapped over.