Yellow Gloves

Black gloves are a bit like black suits in that retail inertia pushes them on customers when there are better choices. Just as brown shoes are more interesting than black for day wear, so brown gloves are a step above black. Other colors, such as yellow chamois or gray suede, can also add texture and visual interest. Both are appropriate for most evening occasions as well as day wear.

Once a common gentleman's glove but now seen infrequently, yellow chamois shows dirt easily and because of that has a relatively short lifespan. On the plus side of the ledger, an unlined pair is a soft, sensual pleasure to wear with a dark Chesterfield, a silk or cashmere scarf and a Homburg hat.

I ordered my yellow chamois gloves from Chester Jeffries, a small English company based in Dorset. They offer a variety of made to order gloves (in half a dozen materials with a dozen different types of lining) on their web site, and accept less ordinary requests by email.

After establishing that Jeffries had the chamois I wanted, I sent them a tracing of my hands. About a month later they responded with a made to measure pair of their CDG-4 Classic Dress Glove, which is, according to the company, hand-cut and hand-sewn. I know of few comparable personalized delights for £53.00 (about $105) including postage.

Sources: Alwyn Gloves

Gloves have been part of a man's wardrobe for a thousand years or more. The Worshipful Company of Glovers of London, whose coat of arms is depicted to the left, is one of the City of London's ancient Livery Companies. According to the Company's web site, the guild existed well before 1349, the date when the company's first formal ordinances were made.

Alwyn Gloves of Worcester, England was founded in 1963 by Les Winfield, a third generation glover and a Liveryman of The Worshipful Gloves.

I found Alwyn after several less than succesful attempts to have gloves made by Italian glovers who shall remain anonymous here. I will only report that the better of the two sent me a pair lined in cashmere when I ordered them unlined and then wanted me to pay the shipping cost to return them for exchange. And they were the better of the two.

Mr. Winfield, on the other hand, charges a fair price, delivers what was ordered and makes gloves that fit. His traditional men's gloves are hand felled at the wrist and have three hand-sewn points on the back. They are available in white, black, brown and tan leather, unlined, or with silk, wool or cashmere linings. The company uses only Pittard's cabretta glove leather, which is hand washable for easy care. And though I know very little about ladies' gloves, Alwyn offers them in lengths that go from the wrist to the elbow and beyond.

All is not perfect, however. Men used to wear a wider variety of gloves than can be found today. Yellow chamois gloves seem to have disappeared entirely. And, for day wear, I prefer gray gloves to black for the same reasons I prefer charcoal suits to black. It's a better look, but try to find a glover that offers them. The only one I know is the unmentionable Italian maker that insists on shipping them lined with cashmere.