Where can you get decent gloves?
This comment reminded me to ask - does anyone know where you can get outstandingly good gloves (or a, uh glovesmith? glovalier? person who can taylor make them?)
I figure you can get ugly second-rate gloves anywhere, so let's aim for perfection. Maybe that's aiming too high, but as I see it, the qualities of perfection include:
- made of that incredibly thin fine leather that you never see anywhere (goatskin?). A tenth the thickness of cow.
- either unlined, or lined with only a layer of very thin fabric.
- (ie. well fitted and thin, so basically a second skin)
- full length fingers. Not those short (2-3 inch) fingers that most mass-produced gloves have.
- fingers have at least three seams lengthwise (ie gloves made from a proper pattern). Fine stitching.
- available in black. (Of course brown would be nice too :-)
- are largely (or completely) undecorated. (Even just those three parallel lines some gloves have on the back of the hand is perhaps pushing it, and anything more than that is too much).
Qualities that would be nice but aren't dealbreakers:
- reaches past the wrist.
- has some unobtrusive means of gathering or tightening at the cuff.
- Available online, or in stores in the Northwest USA.
- Available for men's hands or in custom sizes.
(I'm a guy, but I also suspect that when fitted gloves meet the above criteria, they look wonderful on both men and women - the usual gender-differences in glove styles just look cheap and nasty in comparison to gloves that aim only to be the finest "second skin" that can be made)
Years ago I managed to find gloves that met most of these criteria, sold in a leather shop in New Zealand though made in Italy, but they have since stopped selling them. :-(
So, does anyone know where to get great gloves?
I figure you can get ugly second-rate gloves anywhere, so let's aim for perfection. Maybe that's aiming too high, but as I see it, the qualities of perfection include:
- made of that incredibly thin fine leather that you never see anywhere (goatskin?). A tenth the thickness of cow.
- either unlined, or lined with only a layer of very thin fabric.
- (ie. well fitted and thin, so basically a second skin)
- full length fingers. Not those short (2-3 inch) fingers that most mass-produced gloves have.
- fingers have at least three seams lengthwise (ie gloves made from a proper pattern). Fine stitching.
- available in black. (Of course brown would be nice too :-)
- are largely (or completely) undecorated. (Even just those three parallel lines some gloves have on the back of the hand is perhaps pushing it, and anything more than that is too much).
Qualities that would be nice but aren't dealbreakers:
- reaches past the wrist.
- has some unobtrusive means of gathering or tightening at the cuff.
- Available online, or in stores in the Northwest USA.
- Available for men's hands or in custom sizes.
(I'm a guy, but I also suspect that when fitted gloves meet the above criteria, they look wonderful on both men and women - the usual gender-differences in glove styles just look cheap and nasty in comparison to gloves that aim only to be the finest "second skin" that can be made)
Years ago I managed to find gloves that met most of these criteria, sold in a leather shop in New Zealand though made in Italy, but they have since stopped selling them. :-(
So, does anyone know where to get great gloves?