My particular fetish is for gloves. Not just any gloves, just the best possible in quality kid leather. I have to look to my formative years again here. My mother was the head fitter in a fashion store and there were fashion shows from time to time and I on occasion was present during the comings and goings backstage as it were. This was the New Look, the Golden Age of the fitted suit, pencil skirts, fully fashioned stockings, high heels, three quarter sleeves with long gloves of course in buttery soft kid.The suits even had hip pads in the peplum jackets to exaggerate the hourglass profile!. But it was the gloves that really transfixed me. Even as I type this little epistle I am wearing a long pair in tan kid. Not easy on a laptop! But I always wear gloves to type and as much as I can at other times. As the models strutted on the catwalk, I soaked in the elegant combination of high heels, stockings and kid gloves presented on those Saturday afternoons many years ago. In those days a lady wouldn't be see dead without a hat and gloves. I try and emmulate this as much as I can, mind you hats are ucommon these days.
Since then I have bought many pairs and by trial and much error, have a collection to match my many outfits. Black of course is favourite, always in bracelet length (so called so one can wear a bracelet over or a watch). I wear a bracelet and a watch so I have my gloves on all the time. Some of my gloves are plain, some with button detail, all with the three points on the back which appears to slim the hand. I wear size 8 1/2 and have my gloves made to measure now, with longer fingers which I need for my long nails. I have many other colours and styles, brown, tan (a colour which is surprising versatile) blue, and recently red.
The longer opera lengths have beautiful button closures at the wrist. Other detailings include contrast stitching and gilt buttons. I don't own any short gloves as they do nothing to flatter the larger hand and arm.
Gloves must be unlined to fit closely and flatter. After a while the slight warmth experienced at first is not noticed and they become part of you. Unlined gloves are not for the Arctic. Gloves are for elegance, not to keep your hands warm!
Gloves go with everything; for driving, dining out in opera length (one keeps ones gloves on when eating), shopping in town wearing a bright pair on a gloomy day, etc. In Victorian times, ladies even sewed in them!
You must be thinking what an obsessive! No more than any fashionable lady in 1950s. I think women of today live a different life or so they believe and seldom "dress up" but women in the 1950s probably led busier lives but did it with style! Style has gone out of style!
Nothing can compare with the vision of a lady dressed in a fitted suit, wearing FF stockings, high heels and gloved to perfection in soft kid. God's greatest creation. This is my heaven and I try achieve it for others and myself.
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