In this episode of the Stitch Safari Podcast, I’ll explore the evolution of simple hand coverings from the very simple to ornate art pieces embellished with exquisite hand and machine embroidery and embellishments.
This accessory has existed for eons yet is now rarely worn except as cold-weather adornments, to add an air of elegance and sophistication to formal outfits, or as a health and safety item.
I’m talking about the humble, or not so humble glove. I’ll look at their transformation from functional items to symbols of status and social rank as well as fashion accessories worn by men and women throughout history.
With a rich and varied history, gloves can weave a magical spell of bygone style and chic, modern-day glamour and fairytale charisma. They also provide sensible workwear protection and help prevent infection, now being offered as disposables.
These simple accessories are intimately entwined with men’s and women’s social and fashion mores, referencing particular passages of time through a form of non-verbal communication. The way gloves were worn and the embroidery on them often held key messages in the Victorian era.
Whether throwing down a duelling challenge or gracing lavish formal ballrooms, the history of gloves remains a mix of uniquely sinister, combative, romantic, opulent and utterly common ideals.
They exude a quiet luxury and undeniable elegance, not to mention a warming covering in colder climes. The term ‘throwing down the gauntlet’ has become synonymous with confrontation, but there’s no conflict here, just a glimpse into an accessory that began as a utilitarian item that’s morphed into a luxe necessity and fashion accessory.
They deserve a comeback, and I’m firmly in the corner of the five-fingered glove. Let’s explore them more together.
Early gloves would have been crafted from animal skins and fur as essential items for self-preservation and survival. How do we know this? Cave paintings suggest that mittens were worn in the Ice Age.
So, from purely functional, almost essential items of survival, the glove has transformed into an item of status, gender identity, and as a political and diplomatic tool, not to mention as a token and symbol of love.
Moving quickly through history, we know that richly ornamented and highly decorated linen gloves were worn by royal and high-ranking Ancient Egyptians, with a pair of tied-at-the-wrist gloves discovered in Tutankhamen’s treasure-filled tomb.
Ancient Greek and feudal Japanese soldiers wore protective battle gloves during combat, with Ancient Romans and gladiators using leather gloves for both warfare and protection.
In the Far East, Chinese gloves took on the form of mittens with two sections. One of the oldest extant pairs of mittens was found in Latvia, believed to be around 1000 years old, and today, mittens are part of Latvia’s national costume.
Homer, Herodotus and Pliny the Younger all wrote about gloves as objects of nobility, with Herodotus recounting that the King of Sparta was bribed with a gauntlet filled with silver. A narrative scroll dating from the 12th century also describes early hand coverings.
So gloves were a widely used, usually protective accessory, but during the Middle Ages became commonly used as a symbol of social status. To this end, they were often made from silk or leather and could be highly embellished.
Gauntlets were used during the 14th century as protection for the hand and wrist, frequently made from hardened leather or metal plates, yet medieval texts also recount Popes and other clergy wearing gloves made from white silk adorned with delicate pearls.
Elizabeth I was a huge glove fancier. They became carriers of perfumes to mask, well, other odours. She also favoured jewelled and embroidered gauntlets that sparked a trend amongst her courtiers, igniting the expansion of the glove industry from this time. Tassels, gold and silver thread and appliqued designs graced the fashionable Elizabethan glove.
There were also gloves called Musketeer Gloves that played an important role in protection during fencing and as a status symbol at those ever-so-elegant royal courts. These creations included voluminous lace, fur and precious stones to help seal that outstanding and unique eye-catching outfit.
Gloves were often given as love tokens and courting gifts, with Shakespeare alluding to them in A Winter’s Tale: ‘Come, you promised me a tawdry lace and a pair of sweet gloves.’
Becoming a part of the insignia of emperors, Kings, Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops were liturgical gloves often made from finely knitted silk, worn during pontifical masses in colours corresponding to the liturgical season. Green for Ordinary time, purple for Lent and White for Easter.
They were a symbol of high ecclesiastical office worn before the sacrifice and as part of the consecration ritual of a bishop.
Typically made from silk featuring metal thread patterning, embroidery, lace and other embellishments, liturgical gloves emerged in the late medieval period and were used primarily in the Roman Catholic Church.
Fine and elaborately embellished gloves were given as diplomatic gifts, symbolizing civic respect and loyalty, creating a deep reciprocal bond between the giver and receiver. They held the symbolic weight of power, protection, nobility and honour. This was called material diplomacy.
Lists of luxury gifts and items exchanged during diplomatic missions and negotiations during the 17th and 18th centuries included gloves, with the meaning of the gift varying depending upon the territory, time, the stakeholder’s identity and the political situation.
We know from history that gloves were worn by men and women. Glamour of the Glove published this: A Brief Art History by Lucy Ellis in 2021, where she writes: ‘The archetypal dandy Alfred d’Orsay advised gentlemen to have six pairs of gloves for the day – two for hunting, one for driving, one for walking and one each for dinner and a ball. Single gloves were exchanged between lovers, and it is claimed that after the death of George IV, his executors found over 1,000 lone gloves among his possessions.’
Gloves also travelled the world to the wide open ranges of America’s West. A cowboy’s life included roping and cattle branding, work that was hard on the hands, so leather gloves became a welcome addition to their workaday kit. Personal flair evolved to include bold, embossed patterns, silver studs and, surprise, surprise, beadwork.
In socially-obsessed Victorian times, they were an important and ever-present symbol of social status, with the expectation that the middle and upper classes had to wear them, while the poor and working classes wore cheaper versions to hide their work-worn hands.
Many elite women wore gloves at this time to maintain their hands’ unsullied appearance, acknowledging that they did no menial work, keeping them pale, soft and delicate.
Modesty declared that women should be fully covered before setting foot outside, yet their gloves could be removed during formal meals. Laid gently in the lap, covered by the serviette, they were to be discreetly reapplied before leaving the table.
At this time, men were also ruled by certain expectations of glove etiquette and a code of glove conduct, wearing dark leather or fabric gloves so as not to touch the pristine white gloves of women and to provide a vital barrier between the sexes, preserving that all-important modesty.
The Edwardians celebrated gloves as a popular accessory, often featuring delicate buttoning. During this period, gloves were expected to be correctly tailored and fitted because wearing ill-fitting gloves declared you were from the lower classes. Formal evening gloves often featured decorative embroidery and embellishments.
The practice of wearing gloves declined slightly during World War I and the Flapper period. They were no longer seen as expected articles of clothing; rather, they were used as fashion accessories, sometimes made from sheer lace or light cotton.
However, the Art Deco period saw gloves become more stylish and statement-making than ever before, decorated with lavish designs, embroidery, or geometric embellishments to match the outfits popular at that time. The Gauntlet became popular, featuring a large cuff folded back over the wrist. Elastic also superceded buttons, allowing them to be more easily slipped on and off.
The 1930s rang in more changing trends in glove wearing. The gauntlet continued in popularity, becoming more feminine with softer cuffs, scolloped edges and intricate embroidery detailing the designs.
In modern-day society, we make use of other gloves such as driving gloves, medical gloves, and sports gloves. To this day, most cars include a small area known as a ‘glove box’.
While many of the gloves described here may not be the norm now, they do show the rich and significant role gloves have played throughout history. More than an accessory, they were symbols of social status, customs and traditions that far extend beyond fashion.
Now let’s look at the modern-day material culture of the irrepressible glove.
Conjure these magnificent images. Marily Monroe performing Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend in the iconic movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Or Audrey Hepburn starring in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Both wore magnificent, inspiring opera gloves.
Madonna performed Material Girl in 1985, wearing pink satin gloves in homage to Marilyn.
But the most iconic glove associated with the modern era would have to be the single glove worn by Michael Jackson. No other item is more closely associated with the singer than his lone glove, which established itself as one of the most important and recognizable pop-culture artifacts of all time.
Think this is a new phenomenon? No, it isn’t.
Go onto Pinterest to see a vast array of Elizabethan and Art Deco embroidered gloves, covered in iconography ranging from animals, the cosmos, hearts, arrows, snakes, suns and flowers, not to mention a single eye, skulls and faces. Both these eras were outrageous and adventurous in their application of design and well worth further research.
So what’s happening with gloves today? Who’s wearing them and most importantly, who is still making them?
Catherine, the Princess of Wales, often wears opera gloves to formal events, and those iconic Academy Award ceremonies and Met Gala events are seeing more and more people wearing long, medium and short gloves.
In February 2025, Donato D’Aprile wrote that: ‘Gloves are confirmed as the undisputed protagonists of the Haute Couture catwalks for Spring/Summer 2025, revisited with sartorial savoir-faire and an aesthetic that winks at the past while always looking to the future.’
He goes on to say that wearing gloves is not only a declaration of style but a gesture of such chic, capable of embellishing even the most minimal of looks of that classy imagery. An accessory that evokes the charm of past eras and that, in the collections of many fashion houses, becomes a statement.’
And he finishes with: ‘A veil of tulle, lace and embroidery suspended in time. The high fashion gloves for Spring/Summer 2025 are not simple accessories but fragments of pure elegance, details that whisper stories and refinement to which we are less and less accustomed. Past and future intertwine. Wearing them is not a choice but (always) a statement of style.’
So, gloves are set to light up fashion catwalks in 2025, but how does that relate to us, and embroidery now?
John Koch is a glove artist who has been making and decorating gloves for forty years. His wearable pieces of art are multi-media creations often featuring painted and dyed designs and embellishments.
John states that glove-making is a forgotten art. His work is meant to be eye-catching, putting the wearer at the centre of attention. He uses embroidery techniques such as appliqué, beading, and embroidery to create his exuberant and flamboyant creations.
Kenneth D King, writing for Threads Magazine, notes that LaCracia gloves, now Wing and Weft Gloves, have been worn by first ladies and celebrities such as Lady GaGa, Prince and Michael Jackson.
Mass production and imports have seen the glove industry shrink, but these custom-made gloves are still very popular.
The Wing and Weft factory shop includes its own glove museum featuring obsolete tools, a wooden last of an aristocrat’s hand carved in the 18th century, and a salesman’s sampler with designs inspiring glove designs used in the movie Hello Dolly and other movies such as Batman and the Batman TV series.
Embroidered gloves feature in many a bridal collection. These glamorous creations feature tulle, bows, embroidery and hand-applied pearls.
But what seems to be somewhat of a fashion statement for 2025 is the embroidered woollen mitten, or a glove with no fingers, lavishly decorated with colourful, vibrant wool embroidery featuring embroidered roses, buds and leaves.
Inspirations Magazine featured an article in 2022 on Natalija Brancevičienė, who has been making gloves for the past seven years. Her knitted and crocheted creations are finished beautifully with her embroidered embellishments, making them a stand-out commodity.
Inspired by the nature of Lithuania, Frida Khalo and Arctic scenes, Natalija’s embroidery certainly makes them one-of-a-kind, statement pieces.
In 2025, gloves are emerging as a prominent and versatile medium for artistic expression. More and more artists are using them as repurposed items, or to explore their symbolism and narrative potential.
Gloves are being used in sculptured, mixed-media pieces imbued with layers of meaning and storytelling. Depending on the artist’s interpretation and context, they represent power, protection, mystery, and even melancholy. They are also used to explore themes of the body, femininity, and temporality, with many fashion designers incorporating them into their Spring/Summer 2025 collections.
Look at the work of Hannah Gartside, cest_jeanne, and John Koch for further inspiration – links are included in my show notes on the Stitch Safari website.
So the sartorial glove is alive and doing very well indeed.
Pop over to YouTube for numerous videos on glove-making, or visit Etsy for glove patterns and embellish accordingly, whether completely over-the-top or feminine and demure, gloves enable the embroiderer to use their hands as the models for their talent, allowing inspiration to flow from their fingertips.
I see the value of gloves in textile art and sculptures, but give me the elegance and chic of bygone eras when gloves made a statement outfit, a statement. Add embroidery and embellishments, and those gloves come to life.
As Marilyn sang Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, I remember those gloves in Elsa Schiaparelli’s Shocking Pink, richly encircled by sparkling bracelets embracing every movement of her arms and hands, becoming movie legend.
Or scroll back through history to Elizabeth I’s stirring speech to the troops in Tilbury in 1588, a pivotal moment in British history, delivered during the threat of the Spanish Armada, and while there’s no definitive evidence she wore gloves on this occasion, I bet she did, because she used them strategically throughout her life.
Moments in time, captured in a pair of gloves.
Why not make a pair and see where they lead you?
