Gloves

I enjoy wearing gloves, and wear them in both the summer and the winter.  When I was thinking about the subject of my blog, I thought at first that it should be about gloves.  The need is out there for a fashion- oriented glove blog.  Whenever I looked for sites on gloves, I always got sent to fetish sites.  I actually like gloves as fashion accessories.  One can find fashion sites devoted to shoes or purses, why not gloves?

I also strongly believe that gloves should once again become a summer accessory, not only a winter accessory.  I want to be able to wear gloves in summer and appear normal, and NOT like a hypochondriac, thank you very much!

There is not much I can do to change fashion.  But, I can add to the interwebs photos of my very small collection.

At the time this photo was taken (January), these were the gloves that were in my car:

From left to right: 1) Black velvet 40 gram Thinsulate insulation by Croft&Barrow, 2) Animal print with fleece lining by Isotoner, 3) Periwinkle cotton equestrian by Foxgloves (enlarge to see the gripper nubs).

Gloves that were in storage at the time (summer gloves) :  

(I thought I'd include my embroidered hankies, too) Top row: Double knit nylon gloves, in white, cream, and white again, all by the same unknown manufacturer

Bottom row, L to R: 1) Unlined black leather by Preston &York, 2) Black leather, cashmere lined, by Grandoe, 3) vintage wedding gloves

Here is a closeup of the vintage wedding gloves, so you can see the lace detail on the side and the folds along the wrist:

Today (September), the three gloves in my car are the unlined black leather, one pair of the white double nylon, and the vintage gloves.  I've really loved the vintage gloves this year.  The nylon gloves are slippery, plus they catch and run.  I bought 4 pairs of the nylon gloves last summer because you rarely see summer gloves, and they were on sale.  The pair I wore last year I threw out at the end of the season, due to wear and tear (hence only three pairs of nylon gloves in the pictures).  The vintage gloves are holding up well.  They'll last another year, hopefully two.  It is a little sad though: I'm taking someone's wedding gloves, and demoting them and wearing them as everyday wear.   

These are the gloves I purchased at the end of the winter sales last year.

L to R:  1) Brown suede with silk lining by Guder Gloves, 2 & 3) Ruffled wool gloves by Talbot's

All three were purchased with the idea of wearing them in the summer.  The long gloves would be worn with a tank top that has a brown paisley print on it, and the wool gloves were light colored enough to wear with summer fashions.  Wool, afterall, is moisture wicking and breathable.  I ended up not wearing any of these gloves this season.  I was too timid to wear the long gloves out--it's something of a statement to wear long gloves with a sleeveless outfit, even if you're going to an opera or a fancy dinner.  Wearing long gloves with just a t-shirt and shorts--I'm not sure I'm ready to go there yet.  I think it would be a good look--long gloves look good with sleeveless/strapless dresses, so it should be fine with a sleeveless shirt, too, but I am afraid people will look at me.  As for the other two gloves, I just preferred to wear the white gloves I had in the car, rather than dig out the Talbot's gloves.  

Here are my winter gloves.  I typically wear one of these pairs when there is snow on the ground (Nov - March)

L to R: 1) Archangel by Manzella, 2) LL Bean down gloves, 3) GORE-TEX Thinsulate (150 grams) gloves by Cabela's.   

Finally, my coat gloves.  Each coat or jacket that I own gets its own pair of gloves.

Top, L to R: 1) Brown velvet, 40 gram Thinsulate by Cejon, 2) Black leather, Thinsulate lined, by Wilson's Leather, 3) Lavender washable suede gloves, fleece-lined, by Isotoner

Bottom: Navy Isotoner fleece lined gloves

So there they are.  And if anyone out there reads this and decides to start a glove fashion glove blog, let me know!  

A rant on gloves and Apples

I've had this rant in the back of my head for a while now.  In one of my first blog posts, I mentioned in passing that my iPhone and I did not "meet cute."  It had to grow on me.

Now, that they've introduced the iPad--and they didn't fix what I consider to be a major flaw in the design--has put in a bad mood.  Add to the fact that I've been thinking of gloves recently--they're on sale!, and I have the ingredients necessary for a blog post.

To be blunt: I love gloves.  When I was first thinking of starting this blog, asking myself "What should my blog be about?", the first answer was gloves.

There are blogs about clothes, in general.  There are blogs about purses, and shoes, and jewelry, about perfume.  But as far as I can tell, the only glove blog is the For the Love of Opera Glove blog--which hasn't been updated since 2004.  Makeup blogs will have FOTD--face of the day.  There are several blogs along the lines of "What I Wore Today" (including, of course, "What I Wore Today"). But what about us glove lovers?  Why I can't get a daily fix of some lovely gloves, and how to wear them?

I wear gloves all year.  I love going to fairs in the summer wearing white gloves and a straw hat.  It feels so respectable.  I own as many spring/summer gloves as I do winter/fall ones, and I am looking to increase my spring/summer collection.  Each coat I own has it's own pair of gloves.  Basically, if I'm leaving the house, I'm wearing gloves.

There are more to gloves than opera gloves, but assuming that it is true, that the most popular gloves out there are opera gloves (which is NOT what I observe in looking around the people I pass by everyday)--that makes Apple's overlooking of this flaw even greater--you can't use the iPhone or iPad while wearing gloves.  And stripping--because the way I see it, taking off gloves, especially if you have to peel them off the entire length of your arm, as an opera glove--is not something so casually done, say, on a crowded bus.

So, my iPhone--hated the bugger when I first got it.  I picked it up from the post office--and noticed I couldn't use it.  It was summer even, and even through my thin summer gloves, it wouldn't read my finger pressure.  That was my first impression, and first impressions stay with you.  Within half an hour, I was imaging myself "accidentally" dropping it behind the wheel of my car.

I looked up how one was supposed to use an iPhone with gloves.  The solutions suggested?  Use your nose, or your tongue.  My nose doesn't work, for some reason.  My tongue does work.  But only if I lick it like I MEAN it...no little dainty ice-cream lick, but firm, hard-candy/half-my-tongue-on-the-screen lick.

My thoughts: "I'm sorry, iPhone, but we just met less than an hour ago."  I'm not putting out for my phone.  I'm not that kind of girl.  (Though, I'm pretty sure that anyone who saw me doing that would probably think twice about stealing my phone.)  The iPhone had such GREAT choices for using it.  The choices are: take off a piece of clothing, or lick me hard.  

Other things that bothered me--besides needing to strip in order to use the thing--a dual step to answer the phone (isn't it supposed to be more efficient to use the iPhone?), a really sucky speaker (when alone in the room, I take my calls on speakerphone), and the general elitist attitude of its accessories (everything has to have the designed for iPhone logo on it, or there's no guarantee it will work).

Anyway, I have a stylus for my iPhone now.  It's not a good stylus.  It doesn't read well at all--but it's the only "official" stylus (the Pogo).  I've come to accept that sometimes I need to take off my gloves, but there's still a little resentment underneath.  At least, I only need to take off one.

Yes, I've seen the gloves with the little capacitative patches on the fingers. But the most I've seen is on the thumb, the index, and middle fingers.  Some people type on the iPhone using the index, middle, and ring fingers.  Because some people have small hands.  (Random trivia--the tip of my pinky is too small for the iPhone to register.)  And no, I don't think gloves without fingertips are very stylish.

Really, I'm not the person that the iPhone was designed for.  They had someone else in mind.  Not me.

And now comes the iPad.  Which has a full size keyboard, which means two hands.  Which means one would have to remove both gloves.  At least, from what I could tell, they didn't offer an alternate way of input (other than a separate keyboard--which defeats the purpose of the thing if you have to carry around a screen and a keyboard, no?  I mean, isn't that a laptop?).   So, so, so, stupid.  We're not talking some minor tweak to make the operating system go 2 ms faster.  I mean, it's a change so that one can actually put in input!  How can a thing be interactive if it won't register any inputs?  It's freaking fundamental!

Anyway.

The gloves I saw on clearance were leather, elbow length, unlined.  I think they'd be so cute with a tank top in summer.  My current summer gloves are all 5 button length or shorter.

And for those gardeners out there, looking for a classically styled gloves, instead of the chunky work gloves, I highly recommend Foxgloves brand gloves.  They also work really well for going out.  For a durable dress-casual gloves (gloves to wear when going to the store) I like the Foxglove Original.  For something dressier, there's the Foxglove Elle, that's elbow length.

(The penny remains)