Gloves Story - Les Gants et la Mode...

Gloves Story...

In ancient times gloves were worn to protect working hands.
In the Middle Ages gloves were worn as a sign of wealth and power. Common people wore mittens.
In the nineteenth century, society women and men wore gloves indoors and out. Black silk gloves were worn indoors during the daytime; white gloves were worn out at night.

Many social customs involved gloves.

Gloves were surrendered as a forfeit for an error or a crime.
Gloves were given as party favors at weddings.
Knights in armor carried gloves as talismans in their helmets during tournaments. The gloves belonged to a loved one.
Gloves were used as a pledge.
Gloves were thrown down as a challenge.

Balenciaga, Dior, and Valentino - three of the most storied names in haute couture of the last half-century - are also three of the most notable figures when it comes to the use of opera gloves in fashion. Since 1947, these three houses have made long gloves an integral part of their style. This gallery presents an all-too-cursory look at the best of their glove-accented fashions.

Glove love

with courtesy of fashion.about.com

Every so often, an item comes along that defines a mood, a look, an entire season.

For Fall/Winter '03 -- a season of change to a decidedly grown up, elegant, lady-like aesthetic -- that defining item is the glove.

Not since the '50s, when fashion was all about conforming to a proper and appropriate look, have women embraced gloves as part and parcel of their entire visage, along with the pump, the structured handbag, and the hat.

Instead, gloves have been considered just a winter necessity: something to be purchased and donned ONLY in the dead of winter, as a last resort to ward off frostbite.

Glove departments in stores were hardly enticing, and just about the only place you could even find interesting versions were at vintage shops.

Deborah was born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1966 and studied philosophy and economics at the University of Victoria before becoming the first Canadian to be accepted into the highly-regarded Australian National Institute of Art. Graduating in 1988, she went on to star in the TV drama Bangkok Hilton, starring alongside Nicole Kidman and Denholm Elliot as one of the buddhist co-prisoners, and made the leap to the big screen in various motion pictures - Deborah Kara Unger in leather and opera gloves (picture) - When not working, she divides her time between Vancouver and Los Angeles.

When fashion takes off the gauntlet

Well, as we head into the new season, that’s all about to change.

The defining moment was when Miuccia Prada endorsed gloves on her runway in Milan for fall/winter 2003, showing them for day and night and making them as covetable as her shoes and bags (her crocodile versions had the fashion faithful oohing and aahhing). It was obvious that gloves would be a key trend.

It certainly didn’t hurt that Tom Ford also showed gloves, accessorizing his voluminous pushed up sleeved coats at Gucci with long fitted leather gloves, or that Marc Jacobs did the same in Paris for Louis Vuitton (his cropped sleeved navy pea jacket worn with long black leather gloves was one of the chicest looks of the season in my book).

And the new fashion "god," Olivier Theyskens drove the cognoscenti wild with his youthful approach on display at the House of Rochas, where he used gloves with just about every outfit, exemplifying the '50s couture mood and putting his spin on the legendary label that he is now overseeing.

I for one, love gloves and am so ready for their return. In fact, I wore a pair of long black satin opera length gloves to the CFDA Awards at the New York Public Library in June, proving they are indeed a year round accessory, and not something simply relegated to cold or foul weather.

And I’m hardly alone in my "glove love." There has hardly been an article written in a newspaper (that deals with style), or a feature in a major fashion magazine, that has not already highlighted gloves as one of the most definitive and important accessories of the season.

In the July issue of Vogue, Anna Wintour, in her "Letter From the Editor", singled out the glove (along with the spectator pump) as an item that can be "life changing."

Life changing or not, it sure it chic!

10 reasons I love the glove (and I think you will, too)

1. Like all important accessories (handbags, belts, shoes, hats) they can instantly change the look and mood of an outfit. Nothing imparts the feeling of classic elegance and chic more than wearing gloves.

2. Gloves are a great way to add a fresh jolt of color to what you’re wearing: try red, green, blue, or yellow gloves with a salt and pepper tweed, camel, black, or navy dress, suit or coat.

3. The variety of gloves is astounding: there are gloves of every length (driving gloves, gauntlets, elbow and opera length versions, and some that almost resemble detachable sleeves and reach practically up to the shoulder). There are gloves in neutrals like black, white, and cream, as well as bold accent colors. They are even available in metallics like gold and silver. And they come in both solids as well as patterns: Marc Jacobs for example, showed one of the most whimsical versions of the season in striking black and white stripes to match his mod black and white short fur coat.

Sandie Shaw interview by Graham K
Record Mirror, May 5, 1984

"Mmmmm... I think a sex symbol is possibly the best thing to be..."

Thus spake wild Steve Morrissey last year before his jangle organisation The Smiths hit the heights and baggy-bum chic hit the nations' student unions. Now a sexual role model for a brand new legion of sensitive, disaffected youths, Mr. Morrissey's heroine, and lately, prodigy Sandie Shaw has other ideas -- "Morrissey sexy? Oh no ... I don't find him sexy at all!"

How about a hero? -- "Nearly all my heroes are actresses ... like Shirley MacLaine, or singers like Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. It's not so much their work, more the way they approach things..." ... so no Morrissey?

"Well ... if he works a bit harder he might come on -- he'll have to keep at it for a while. Morrissey hasn't had any failures yet -- so I'd like to see him have a few failures and see how he handles that!"

'Hand In Glove' is the reason for our little talk. The first Smiths single, a murky but muscular indication of the things that were to come, has undergone some stringent pop scrutiny and re-emerged with a sparkling Smithsonian sheen, Ms Shaw's breathless and enthusiastic vocal injecting the necessary stimulant to guarantee its present position -- lunging purposefully into the Top Ten. She's been there before, you may (if you're older than Jim Reid) remember. She had hits. And she's hitting again.

But tell me, Sandie, do you actually like these uncouth Mancunians and their wild and leery music?

"Now I feel very close to Morrissey ... but when he first sent me a tape ... It was with a fan letter and I really don't know why I listened to more than two bars of it -- it was awful ... really awful. So I sent it back and said I couldn't make head or tail of it . So they sent me another version ... and I sent that back too!"

So what on earth possessed you to look any further... ?

"In the end Morrissey ended up in my front room and when I actually met him I decided I could trust him -- I took it totally on trust. I still didn't even like the stuff until I got in the studio and started singing it. I then realised that I'd wanted these songs for ages -- not so much the style -- more the passion. I'd missed that, and everything else had just seemed so cliched nowadays. Now it's either music for the genital or the head ... not much for the heart which is what I've always preferred."

Had you been waiting for the opportunity to get back into the singing swing?

"No, not really. Everyone had always been nagging me and nagging me to sing again, but the more they nagged me the less I actually wanted to do it. I'd been so disillusioned with it in the past -- I don't particularly enjoy being famous. I can't understand why people want to be popstars -- the thought of that album followed by a tour routine -- it's so boring. The only appeal is being able to communicate with some people who might feel the same as you."

How important is success, then?

"I hate that desperation people have. It's always been much better if you're more natural, doing something if it feels right. That's why I stopped before -- it wasn't fun, it wasn't successful and I was doing rubbishy songs. Artists shouldn't be taken in by commercial success."

Two years ago Sandie released a cover of 'Anyone Who Had A Heart' as part of the admirably ambitious but ill-fated BEF 'Music Of Quality and Distinction' -- had that been a satisfying experience?

"No, it wasn't successful in any sense. It wasn't commercial and I didn't get anything out of it in a personal or artistic way. I was uncomfortable with BEF. It's much better now -- it's still traumatic but once I've actually done it I feel better."

For someone with such laissez faire notions towards the pop rat-race, do nerves ever bother you?

"I was so nervous before the Hammersmith Palais thing (Sandie recently guested on 'Hand In Glove' [actually, it was 'I Don't Owe You Anything' - TM] at the climax of a London Smiths show). I'd been sitting at the side of the stage watching and they went marching off to the dressing room to look for me. When I wasn't there they thought I'd pissed off because I didn't like the show! So they're panicking up there and I'm sitting down on the stage thinking 'They don't want me to go on, they've changed their minds'. Eventually they found me and were begging me to go on ... Afterwards Morrissey rang me up at about three in the morning and said 'Well?' -- I just told him I could have done an hour, one song just wasn't enough!"

Is playing the pop game in 1984 much the same as it was in 1964?

"Oh no -- music now is terribly boring -- and it doesn't seem to reflect what's going on with young people. Film and TV is much more reflective of that. When I was a kid I thought that I could do anything, be anything -- so therefore I did it. People now are so much more dependent upon the State, they let the State make all the decisions. In the 60s everyone geared their creativeness towards music -- artists, writers, everybody. Nowadays it's diversified -- I'm sure they must be somewhere ... maybe they're writing for pop magazines!"

So if nothing in pop apart from those sizzling Smiths offers any solace where must we look for future Sandie Shaw contributions to popular culture?

"On TV. With television you can think of an idea and get it across immediately. I'm working on a programme about women in music -- this has only really been around since the early sixties and I find how women have actually evolved within such a sexist industry really interesting. It's about how people use influence, how they're aware of it."

The above article was originally published in the May 5, 1984 issue of Record Mirror magazine.
Reprinted without permission for non-profit use only.

The opera glove has been recognized for well over a century as one of the foremost symbols of feminine elegance and sensuality. The very sight of a kidskin, suede, satin or lame glove embracing the hand and arm of a woman sends a powerful conscious and subconscious signal that the wearer is a woman of style, elegance, passion, power and sexuality. Ever since over-the-elbow gloves were first widely worn by women during the Regency and Napoleonic era at the beginning of the 19th century, and especially since "The Divine Sarah", Sarah Bernhardt, introduced the mousquetaire to America in the 1870s, the opera glove, on the arms of beautiful women, has been reducing male viewers to puddles of mush.

with courtesy of www.operagloves.com

About the Origin of the Opera Glove

While gloves have been worn for nearly three thousand years, the garment we know as the opera glove seems to have first evolved in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Queen Elizabeth I of England is reported as wearing an 18-inch-long pair of white leather gauntlets, with two inches of gold fringe, at a ceremony at Oxford in 1566. Over-the-elbow gloves, as we know them, first became popular as standard items of fashion around the time of Napoleon I, though long gloves were already coming into fashion while he was still making his military reputation in Italy. Napoleon himself was a great lover of gloves; he is reported, as of 1806, to have in his wardrobe no fewer than 240 pairs of gloves! He was very much appreciative of beautiful and interesting feminine attire, and encouraged his Empress, Josephine, and the other ladies of his court to dress in the height of style and fashion. For example, at his and Josephine's coronation in 1804, the gloves made for the ceremony cost thirty-three francs per pair, a considerable sum in these days - but then, good gloves have always been costly. Napoleonic and Regency (as this period was called in England - this was the era Jane Austen wrote about, and ladies wearing long gloves are often to be seen in films made of her books, such as "Sense and Sensibility" and "Emma") gloves were of many materials and a bewildering variety of colors. Kidskin and cloth were favored materials, and the gloves were often made so that they fitted loosely around the wearer's arm and could be "scrunched" down toward the wrist at the wearer's option. Starting from about 1810, sleeves began to grow longer, and the length of gloves in most cases shortened correspondingly. However, long gloves were still customarily worn with formal dress until around 1825.

The Golden Age of the Opera Glove

The "opera glove", in the version we most commonly know it today - a glove of between 19 and 23 inches in length, made of kid leather and colored white, ivory or black, with a wrist opening closing with three buttons or snap, and often with three lines stitched across the back of the hand - is a type called the mousquetaire in French. If that name sounds familiar when you sound it out, it should; the glove is a feminine adaptation of a style that was originally developed for use by the French musketeers - yes indeed, the Three Musketeers and that lot! - in the 17th century. In the original form, these gloves were made in singles (half-pairs) for use in dueling, and were constructed so as to fit over a sleeve. These gloves often had wrist belts with buttons for everyday dress and jeweled clasps for court wear. When the mousquetaire was redesigned for ladies, it was refined so that the glove was much longer (over the elbow usually, sometimes as far up as the shoulder), and designed with its modern characteristic feature, the lengthwise opening (usually 2 to 3 inches long), which is made to be closed with small buttons in clusters of three or four (most commonly of pearl or a pearl-like material), or, after about 1890, with snap fasteners. The longest mousquetaires were designed so that the sleeves could wrinkle attractively as they wrapped their wearer's arms.

Rita Hayworth, the opera gloves queen Opera Gloves in the 20th Century

In the Golden Age of Hollywood, very few actresses (being well-brought-up, even if they did get up to all sorts of hijinks!) would be caught dead on the street without their gloves. Attitudes toward gloves varied, of course. For instance, Vivien Leigh, who hated the way her hands looked - she considered them to be far too big for her small frame - would wear gloves on every occasion she could get away with it, whereas Myrna Loy, who was quite vain of her hands, preferred to leave them bare unless it was required for her to wear gloves for some role or occasion. Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe and Gina Lollobrigida are among the actresses of the 1950's - the last golden age of gloves (gloves were an important part of Christian Dior's New Look, and opera gloves were often worn as part of daytime outfits, usually with sleeveless or short-sleeved dresses, during this decade) - who are most associated with glove-wearing. Audrey Hepburn, in particular, is known for her love for the so-called "three-quarter" length of glove (reaching to just below the elbow), and her gloved image as Holly Golightly in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is indelibly imprinted on the public's mind. Marilyn Monroe was another great glove wearer, especially in her movie roles; she wore hot pink opera gloves with a strapless gown of the same shade for her immortal "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" number in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes".

While the wearing of gloves, as an indispensable part of a woman's outfit, fell into desuetude during the 1960's, opera gloves still pop up whenever a woman wants to look elegant or sexy. Most recently, for example, country singer Shania Twain set the 1999 Grammy awards ceremony on its ear when she performed in an outfit that included shoulder-length, fringed black opera gloves. Also, Geena Davis wowed the 1998 Academy Awards with an outfit that included gleaming white satin opera gloves that went literally all the way up to the shoulder. The Canadian actress Deborah Duchene also made a powerful impression on viewers of the much-loved vampire TV series "Forever Knight" by making black opera gloves (leather, silk, satin, and velvet) an important part of the style of her character, Janette duCharme.

What's Hot
Tweed Jackets - Tweed is one of the hottest fabrics, and although it comes in everything from skirts to hats, the must-have item is the fitted blazer. It's making a strong showing in all colors, from earthy tones to pastel hues. Try wearing them with jeans to dress up a casual outfit.
Cuffed Jeans - Cropped jeans were an essential item last season, but now, cuffs are all the rage! You can't pull off this look with flared or baggy jeans, so throw on a pair of skinny jeans and fold the legs a couple of times to make chunky cuffs.
Wellington Boots - Remember those ugly rubber boots that your 'rents made you wear on rainy days? Well, now they're totally hot! Wellies have turned bright and colorful, so don't wait for a rainy day - wear 'em now!
Pencil Skirts - Pencil skirts, in mini or knee lengths, are fitted and ultra-girly. They're best worn with your round-toe ballet shoes, but try pairing them with Wellies for a funky look.
Tote Bags - Sure, every girl likes tiny designer purses, but large totes are practical and roomy enough to carry all your essential items, from your make-up bag to your MP3 player.

What's Not
Dirty Denim - It's official: the grungy look is out. Following hot on the heels of the urban prep trend are clean-cut denims, which are totally cool for school.
Track Suits - It used to be stylish to dress down and look like you were hitting the gym when you were actually hitting the mall with your gal pals. Now it's not, so only wear your track suits when you go exercise.
Ugg Boots - Uggs are cool, especially when they're paired with jeans or a mini, but these boots are seeing their last days. Everywhere you look, girls are stepping out in Uggs and wearing them out, which is why they're not as trendy as they used to be.
Frilly Minis - Just like Uggs, the frilly miniskirt is another sweet style that's been exhausted. But since these minis are still so cute, put them away in your closet and save them for when the weather gets warmer.
Trucker Hats - To all the girls who're still sporting trucker hats: they went out of style months ago! Throw these silly hats away and put on a newsboy cap or a beanie instead.

Sexy Mamas - Heidi Klum und Sarah Connor scheinen Paradebeispiele für die perfekte Frau zu sein: Sie sind bildhübsch, Mutter von süßen Kids, haben einen attraktiven Mann an ihrer Seite und sind auch beruflich äußerst erfolgreich. Sexy Mutter Sarah Connor! Sexy Mamas Heidi Klum Pamela Anderson Sexy Mamas Model Heidi Klum ist zum zweiten Mal schwanger und scheint mit jedem Kind schöner zu werden. Musste sie die erste Schwangerschaft und Geburt von Tochter Leni noch ohne den Erzeuger des Kindes, dem italienische Playboy Flavio Briatore, durchstehen, steht sexy Heidi nun ihr Freund und Popstar Seal zur Seite. Auch Sängerin Sarah Connor ist seit Anfang des Jahres Mama von Sohnemann Tyler. Den Vater ihres Kindes, den amerikanischen Boygroup-Sänger Marc Terenzi von "Natural", hat Sarah inzwischen geheiratet und beginnt nun wieder die Charts aufzumischen. Heißer denn je. Demi Moore ist zwar mit Bruce Willis, dem Vater ihrer Töchter, nicht mehr verheiratet, aber sie beweist, dass sie auch mit über 40 und als dreifache Mutter noch extrem sexy ist. Nicht zuletzt durch ihre Affäre mit dem 15 Jahre jüngeren Ashton Kutcher... Kinder zu bekommen hat auch Supermodel Cindy Crawford nicht geschadet – sie ist nach wie vor gut im Geschäft. Auch Pamela Anderson nimmt man ab, dass sie sowohl eine gute Mutter als auch ein Sexsymbol ist. Das Ende der Karriere bedeutet ein Baby also nicht. Im Gegenteil: Die Superstar-Mütter sind schöner und erotischer als je zuvor. Klicken Sie sich durch: Bin 20 Jahre und habe eine sehr junge gutaussehende und sehr kurvenreiche Mutter(36). Ich wünsch mir nichts mehr,als meine sexy Mutter,mit der ich alleine lebe, auch mal in engen Gummi zu sehen. Wie kann ich sie überzeugen ?

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