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The wind won’t stop messing with Pope Francis’s look

July 6, 2015 at 10:48 a.m. EDT
Pope Francis in Quito, Ecuador, with the country’s President Rafael Correa on July 5. (Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi)

Gusts of wind are not your friend when your work outfit involves a flappy cape and a loosely secured hat, as Pope Francis has demonstrated time and time again. Most recently, the pontiff fought the wind (and the wind won) in Ecuador, as he arrived in Latin America for a three-country tour.

Sunday’s trouble began as the pope left his plane in Ecuador. Here is a photograph of his skull cap (called a zucchetto, in case you’re interested) suspended by the wind above his head, the first of several outfit modifications he underwent in the ensuing minutes:

As Pope Francis arrived in Ecuador's capital Quito on Sunday to begin an eight-day tour of South America, a gust of wind blew off his cap. (Video: Reuters)

Eventually, the wind transformed Pope Francis’s cape from a drab shoulder cover into a fashion-forward scarf:

This really does happen to him a lot. A gust of wind took Pope Francis’s hat in January, as he stepped off the plane in Manila for his visit to the Philippines.

[Pope Francis has 99 problems, and they are all his pellegrina]

The wind also has a habit of finding Pope Francis at home, at the Vatican. In November, a particularly windy day at the Vatican turned one of the pope’s weekly general audiences into a struggle for the ages with his own shoulder cape — formally called a pellegrina.

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