Wouldn't it be Glover-ly????

"When in doubt as to local customs, put a pair of gloves in your pocket, and if you cannot judge with certainty whether others will wear them, be on the safe side by putting them on before you enter the drawing room."

-Good Manners (Butterick Publishing Company, 1888)

I have an obsession with gloves, although I almost never wear them. I am fascinated by the making of gloves and the completely foreign shape of the pattern pieces! My beloved glove pattern from 1943, which I am absolutely baffled by, but hope to figure out someday, calls me to create something as lovely as the illustrations on the pattern envelope. The instructions are so spare, I wonder if they are joking.




After reading the "instructions" again a few more times, I have determined that the pattern company makes the following assumptions; that the gloves will be sewn by hand (which appears to be necessary, due to the shape of the pieces), that you know what type of fabric to purchase (there is no guidance for fabric at all - but it certainly shouldn't fray), that you know what it means to "glove stitch", and that you know how to determine your glove size. Okay, so I'll have to do a bit of research and make a muslin before I can tackle this one. My goal is to make gloves with embroidery travelling up the fingers. This will take time. Maybe my pattern doesn't need to be from 1943, huh?

For online eye-candy, the Martin Margiela artisinal clothing featured on Inhabitat.com is so inspiring and beautifully weird, that I felt I needed to share... Check out the top made of overlapping gloves!

On Manners and Wealth

A rare occurance...

I was inspired by Peggy Noonan's particularly timely piece in today's Wall Street Journal, entitled "Rich Man, Boor Man" to write today's entry. The key to her article is that "the pursuit of riches has made us ruder". Absolutely.



One of my new favorite books is Good Manners, which actually isn't new, but from the late 19th century. While reading it, I discovered that manners are constant, and what consitutes good manners has barely changed in the past two centuries. As we become more disconnected, the loss of manners creates considerably more room for misunderstanding, conflict, and evasion to avoid discomfort.

As I alluded to in my recent post on the White House dress code, the loss of manners has made it easy to dismiss the basic level of respect owed to sites of historic significance and prestige.


The Wall Street Journal article "What I Wore to the Takeover" combines the ideas of manners, respect and clothing as communication. In this article, Donald Trump mentions that he respects his colleagues and business associates by dressing harmoniously with their culture and environment. While clothes alone do not make the man, I think the WSJ is on to something here...