It's funny though. I actually know something about textiles and it played into my running sheep for a while, and spinning and even weaving a little. And the reason was that the church I grew up in and was an altar boy in had unbelievably beautiful textiles. And being an altar boy I spent a lot of time on my knees inches away from them.
So I don't know all that much about fashion and designers, but when I worked the metal detector in Court I used to amaze the lady lawyers by being knowledgeable about what they had on.
So I can see an inquisitive and appreciative intellect having spent so much time in a place like Rome being pretty much on top of who makes the good stuff. It IS a real craft, after all, and textiles are wonderful. And that's before you get to design and tailoring and all the other amazing skills and visions which go into the stuff we drag over our nakedness in the morning.
Can you imagine what a gas it is that my wife wears a jacket the yarns of which I wove, some of the wool of which I sheared, carded, washed, spun, and dyed -- and then her mom, who is a nonpareil seamstress, designed and made into the final piece? -- I haven't done much useful in my life, but I made that cloth, darn it!
Agreed and Benedict XVI certainly has a refined aesthetic appreciation of music, art and literature, so it makes sense that it would extend to fabrics. It's just that as a priest his wardrobe is fairly limited and somewhat specialized, not to mention that clerical garb doesn't change much. Knowing the best tailors of ecclesiastical "threads" in Rome is not quite the same as knowing the latest trends or current "in" designers in fashion.
The better quality priests' clerical garb and liturgical vestments are usually made from wool, silk, linen or cotton. As you probably know, Italy also makes some of the finest textiles in the world, including an amazing spectrum of wool from the lightest summer weight wool to a thick cashmere used in jackets. That is pretty cool about the cloth you made being crafted into a jacket for your wife. Bravo!