The story of gloves goes way back to prehistoric times. Cavemen wore gloves to protect their hands and the gloves took the form of bags that resembled a primitive type of mitten.
After the Norman Conquest, in England, royalty and dignitaries wore gloves as a badge of distinction.
In fact the glove became meaningful as a token. To throw a gauntlet at the feet at an adversary was challenging his integrity and an invitation to a duel. The glove to challenge personal battle remained part of English law for almost 800 years.
The 12th century saw wearing gloves as a definite part of fashionable dress and during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 no respectable and well-dressed woman would be seen in public without them. The popularity of gloves grew and became more accessible to the common person.
From the 14th and 15th centuries onwards gloving centers began to develop and London became the hub of the glove trade.
During the 16th and 17th centuries gloves were extravagantly decorated and were made of leather, linen, silk or lace and were fringed, embroidered or jeweled. However, after the 17th century the emphasis became upon a proper fit and gloves became less ornamental.
The craft had been protected against foreign imports until the reign of Edward IV in 1462 and controls became less stringent. In 1826 the barrier against imports was swept away in favor or the 19th century philosophy of free trade.
The philosophy of free trade had detrimental effects on the workers and their masters. During 1826-1866 the number of masters deteriorated rapidly from 120 to only 40. Then the labor situation altered with the Great War as it brought an expanding engineering industry to the city with its higher earnings.
The early part of the 19th century saw methods practiced in the glove trade changing from those pursued for hundreds of years. There was a greater use of capital and division of labor between the men who cut the gloves and the women who sewed them.
Significant changes in the industry were made and the most significant was the establishment of glove sizes and method of cutting, which was devised by a French Master Glover Xavier Jouvin (1800-1844). Jouvin made use of uniformly proportioned knives, which were graded for size and gave a constant shape for the makers and established a reliable fit.
Gloves were formerly seen as a contingency merchandise and one had to try on several pairs to find a pair that fitted adequately. Now all hand sizes could easily find a pair of well fitting gloves. The development of high-grade steel for the knives and the creation of the hand lever benefited Jouvin’s idea.
After the Great War young labor was attracted away from the traditional employer as the engineering industry boomed offering higher wages. To make matters worse there were large-scale imports of foreign made gloves that sold at prices far below the cost of production in the UK. The onset of World War 2 brought about further decline that has continued to the present day.
Article Source: Gloves Guide
