THE THRILL & HISTORY OF GLOVES In Mayfair By Tyne O'Connell Dance-cards, balls, crisp mornings & the thrill of pulling on one's first pair of Gloves. Gloves whether from #Buddshirts in the #PiccadillyArcade or @Picketts off #Burlington Arcade, gloves remain the most unimpeachable gift for dandies & dandizettes or chaps & chapesses of all ages. http://bit.ly/historyofgloves Britain's great love of "gloves as art" began 375 years ago upon the marriage of one of Prince Williams great Stuart ancestors, CharlesI to the wildly-beautiful eccentric, Henrietta Marie de Medici. Her magnificent dowry included - amongst the rubies, gold, diamond and pearls - the greatest collection of Artemisia Gentileschi & Van Dyck in the world. But the fabled De Medici dowry was fabled, not just for the quality, but the quantity of its numerous grand collections, one of which was gloves. Queen Henrietta Marie arrived in England with the world's greatest collection of gloves made of all manner of exotic textiles, skins and leathers and bejewelled with rubies, diamonds and threaded with gold. So essential were gloves to her happiness, she travelled with her own glove maker, which surely is the non plus ultra of luxury. Imagine the thrill of ordering up a pair of kid-skin gloves encrusted with seed-pearls, before one's first cup of Countess Grey and marmalade toast. The idea alone makes my heart flutter and puts all disagreeable ideas from my mind. Gloves certainly trump anti-depressants when it comes to putting a spring in girl's step. Upon Queen Henrietta Marie's arrival in England she presented King CharlesI with a majestic pair of buckskin gloves so spectacular he was moved to issue a special charter to glovemakers in 1638 elevating gloves to the status of artworks and their makers artisans. The Worshipful Company of Glove Makers existed well before King CharlesI since 1349, fixing the price of gloves & ordering they may not be sold by candlelight as "folk could not tell whether they were of good or bad leather or lawfully or falsely made". Under King Charles I gloves became art and essential part of the Cavalier costume and glove makers prosper (at Mount Street Mayfair)
