Theme of Many Romances

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 46, 25 February 1936, Page 11

Theme of Many Romances

Before we come to a glove romance of to-day, the story of three girls from the Rhineland Marianne, Pine and Lotte and of their glove-tower in Berlin, let us consider a few incidents in the long history of gloves since the first legendary pair was fashioned by Venus herself. Jean Godard, in his story the love of Venus for young Adonis, tells us the charming legend of the first pair of gloves; how Venus, while she searched through the forest for Adonis, pricked her finger on a thorn. A drop of her blood fell to the earth, and there the first red rose was born. Then Venus commanded her handmaidens to bring her two pieces of leather shaped tp her hands, that she might have protection for her tender Thus, when Venus drew on the first- pair ol gloves and her maidens copied her, a new fashion was born.

To step from legend to fact, it seems most probable that- gloves wore -first WOfn in Polar regions, where the hunters of wild bears fashioned gloves for themselves from the skins of the beasts they slew. The necessity that was mother to the invention of gloves was almost certainly the necessity of protecting the hands against cold. Bound about 400 B.C. Xenophoue jeered at the Persian soldiors, calling then) effeminate because they wore gloves to keep their hands warm. Nevertheless, it was probably the Greeks, countrymen of the supercilious Xenophon, who, with their gift for adorning all domestic objects, began to fashion these crude hand-coverings (as all our garments were originally merely coverings for various parts of the body) into things of beauty. Their function became to adorn as well as to protect. As articles of intimate human use are wont to do, in each succeeding age gloves have drawn about them a mass of custom and polite usage. It was once the pleasant habit of English lords after a banquet to present heir lady guests with gloves, which were offered on oval salvers of gold or silver. In the reign of Henry 111. lint) ladies and dandies even went so far as to wear their gloves at night, that their hands might remain white and soft. Turning from such effeminate courtiers* ways we 'find that about the same period, and, indeed,. long after, in that age of - duels, the soldier’s gauntlet had become the very convenient symbol of challenge to mortal combat. Swifter and more dramatic than words was the .flourish with ■which a glove could be plucked • from the hand and hurled at' a rival’s feet or into his face.

This brings us back to Berlin and to the glove-tower, whero a hobby that budden in a small Rhenish town has blossomed: into a very profitable and original business, to the great content of Lotte, Pine and Marianne, who make exquisitely individual gloves by hand. Pirst. the design is conceived, and very carefully executed in every detail. Then the . leather, chosen painstakingly, with due regard for its fitness in colour and texture, is dampened, well stretched, shaped and assembled. It is fascinating work to watch, and, obviously, to do. Each small glove masterpiece, when finished, receives a title suggested by its colour and design. This stamps it as an individual—an exclusive, tailor-made glove.