What happens when the pope wears your hat?

New York Times

13-06-2025

It is well known by now that Pope Leo XIV is a fan of the Chicago White Sox; he even attended Game 1 of the 2005 World Series, which the White Sox recently commemorated with a mural at their ballpark. His latest public display of fandom? Wednesday, he was spotted at the Vatican sporting a '47 branded White Sox cap, along with his white papal cassock.
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But what actually happens when the Pope wears your hat? Not too many companies can ever say they've ever had someone of his holiness' stature don their cap. So what exactly does that feel like, and what does it do for a brand??
'He's the ultimate influencer,' said Patrick Cassidy, Vice President of Marketing at '47, adding later, 'What the Pope is wearing is the exact model that a style-conscious fan can get on '47brand.com. That's pretty cool.'
'It was surreal,' said Gary DeStefano, the Massachusetts newlywed who went viral for handing the pope his fresh new lid.
The White Sox cap that the Pope was wearing was a part of their MVP collection. Just a week prior, His Holiness was also seen wearing a Villanova Wildcats hat that was gifted to him by his alma mater. That cap was from '47's Clean Up collection.
'He's becoming this style icon through fandom with '47,' Cassidy said. 'That's a great signifier of where we are as a brand.'
In the last few weeks, Cassidy said that celebs such as Kim Kardashian, Timothee Chalamet and Caitlin Clark have been seen wearing apparel from '47, and the company has seen an influx of people on social media wearing their hats and tagging them daily. While '47 — a Massachusetts-based company acquired last year by New Era — didn't give specifics on how their sales numbers have been impacted by the Pope's recent fashion choices, the company seems optimistic about how it will impact their bottom line going forward.
'There's clear signals in every possible way that more and more people are recognizing the '47 brand,' Cassidy said.
As for Gary and Kelly DeStefano, the newlywed couple from Massachusetts who gave the Pope the White Sox hat, they saw the aftereffects of what they did before they could even go to sleep that night.
On the final day of their 17-day honeymoon in Rome, the two planned to receive the 'sposi novelli', a blessing for newlyweds given by the Pope himself. They initially got the hat from Kelly's cousin with the intention of wearing it in the crowd to get the Pope's attention, clearly aware of his South Side roots. But once the two realized that all of the recently married couples would get a personal greeting from the Pope, they had another idea for what they'd do with the hat.
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Once the Pope came up to them and gave them a blessing, DeStefano took the hat out from his side and asked: 'would you mind putting this on?'
Prior to that, DeStefano had mentioned that the two were from Boston and were fans of the Red Sox. So when the Pope saw the White Sox hat, he laughed and said he would wear it, before offering a caveat: 'but, you're going to get in trouble, not me.'
By 9 p.m. in Rome on Wednesday, the couple had gone to sleep after what was one of the most memorable moments of their lives together. Two hours later, the two were awoken by the sound of constant buzzing on their phones.
The phone rang again on Thursday, as they were about to hustle through customs after their flight back home. By then, the video of the brief interaction — with the Pope telling his joke while modeling his black Sox cap — had gone viral.
'That to me showed the human side in the man,' DeStefano said in a phone interview. 'He is the most humble man, down to earth and funny.'
(Top photo of Pope Leo XIV with Gary and Kelly DeStefano courtesy of Gary DeStefano)