UN Geneva Tour Guide Uniform Launch

New tour guide uniforms are a cut above at UN’s Palace of Nations

Tour guides at UN Geneva turned heads at the Palace of Nations on Thursday as they unveiled stylish new uniforms, designed in partnership with leading Italian sustainable fashion designers and manufacturers.

The modern new look features a deceptively unfussy jacket made of light green wool – complete with sumptuous UN-blue lining and discreetly shaped shoulders. The lapel-free blazer is meant to be worn over an “explosion of colours” provided by a dazzling array of bespoke silk waistcoats, said Ambassador Luigi Maria Vignali of Italy, which co-hosted the launch with the Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte.

Combined, the ensemble represents a “symbolic contribution” to the UN, embodying “creativity, sustainability and cultural meaning”, he maintained.

Echoing those sentiments, UN Geneva Director-General Tatiana Valovaya noted that for the many thousands of visitors who come to the Palace of Nations every year, guides from the Visitors Service represent the global body and what it stands for. “These are the first people to tell them how we function, what we do, what are our values, our priorities,” she said.

The olive green jackets are an overt reference to and a call for peace and social responsibility, explained Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the Information Service at UN Geneva: “I think it’s very important for our guides to show that the United Nations are a place where you don’t only speak, but also you ‘do’: the fact that these jackets are sustainable, that we produced them with sustainable materials…We really hope that visitors will appreciate and will be able to identify our guides with the message of peace, unity, sustainability when they come here.”

For the launch of the new uniforms, the vast Pas Perdus hallway at UN Geneva was converted briefly into perhaps one of the most original catwalk venues in Switzerland. “My favourite thing is about the gilet [waistcoat] with different colours and the pattern and design,” said designer Tiziano Guardini, who explained that his jacket embraced all different designs around the world. “It’s not the conventional one with the [lapels],” he said. “This kind of detail, I think that is what I really like the most.”

For her part, UN model and guide Sonia Holden was delighted with the contrasting styles, “the fact that we all have the blazer that’s the same colour and then we all have different waistcoats with different designs so everybody could choose their own designs”.

Fellow colleague Sidonie Auroy was equally enthusiastic: “Here, we show all of the works of art from different countries and now I will also will be able to wear this multiculturalism and to explain that to the public.”

From the Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte, General Director Paolo Naldini explained that the initiative very nearly never happened, after he received an email request from the United Nations in Geneva. “My first reaction was that this must be a joke, so I almost ignored it; fortunately, I did not,” he said.

Mr. Naldini offered further insight into the motivation for the jacket and waistcoat dynamic, describing it not as a uniform but “pluriform”. The jacket “is the same for everybody”, he explained, “a common belonging, a common project. And then you have the waistcoat and each one is totally different; and I like to think of them as to all of us as a drop, as a drop of water, which is totally unique, but at the same time, all drops together come and make this sea of humanity.”

The uniforms are the first product made entirely through the Slow Fiber supply chain, featuring Di. Vè’s 100 per cent wool yarn, woven by Achille Pinto, dyed and finished by Tintoria e Finissaggio 2000, cut and sewn by Pattern; the linings were supplied by Tintoria Stamperia of Lambrugo, all under the coordination of MagnoLab.

“By bringing together institutions, designers, manufacturers, and sustainability actors, the project demonstrates how partnerships can turn shared values into visible, tangible action,” said UN Geneva.

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UN Geneva Tour Guide Uniform Launch

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