FAMOUS GLOVES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21640, 4 November 1933, Page 6 (Supplement)

FAMOUS GLOVES

THEIR VARIED HISTORY OLE AND MODERN VERSIONS J Now that gloves have suddenly come into such startling prominence and are blossoming out into frilly ruffles and elaborate gauntlets, it is interesting to note that this particular article of attire has had a more varied, history than any other, and has cropped up again and again through the ages in the most curious and diversified connections. There used to be a saying that for a glove to be well made three nations must have a hand in it —Spain must dress the leather, France cut the shape, and England sew the seams. To-day the daintiest as well as the stoutest gloves in the world are produced in English workrooms, but in mid-Victorian times it was those of Paris which were preeminent; a large proportion of them were made from rat-skins!

Giant gloves and white paper ones were often used as decorations in bygone England Those of paper used to be fastened to freshly cut boughs displayed at doors and windows to celebrate local weddings. The ceremony of " Hoisting the Glove " was still to be seen at Exeter, in mid-Victorian times, at the Lammas Fair. The glove in question was of immense size, padded out and borne through the city on a long pole decked with flowers and ribbons.. "With it paraded the city's beadles and a band. Then it was hung out of a window of the Guildhall as a signal that the fair had begun. Its taking in showed that the fair was over. At Barnstaple a huge glove decked with dahlias was hung from a window of the Quay Hall, the oldest building in the town, during the fair, 1 and Chester had the same custom. At fairs in Portsmouth, Newport, Isle of Wight, and Macclesfield, the display of the giant glove carried with it a licence for tipplers and brawlers, for while it was displayed no arrests for disorderly behaviour Avere made. In olden times gloves were often ornate and gem-bedecked, but in our grandmothers' youth even embroidery or a blend of colours was held to be in bad taste; gloves bad to be severely simple. Richard Couer de Lion is recorded to have been discovered on his fateful journey by the jewelled which hung at his page's girdle. The gloves of the bishops of England, in pre-Reformation times, were decked with valuable jewels, as a feature of the display of vestments they made to impress the peasantry. Wonderfully fragile and thin gloves used to be made at Limerick of chicken skin, each packed in a walnut sheil. fastened with dainty ribbon, and sold for a mere five shillings a pair. About the time of the Crimean War a curious glove enjoyed a brief vogue in London. It had a pocket in the palm, which opened when the hand was closer) and, shut when it was opened. It was received with enthusiasm by the many timid ladies of those days who feared to displav their purse in public and used to carry the coins for their bus fare in the palm of the hand, inside the glove.