Gloves Galore

Tucked away in our storage room I found a box full of vintage gloves! Some of them are labeled with my great-grandmother's name, Beatrice Blackmar Gould, others have no name, so they may belong to other family members, or they could all be BB's. There are quite a lot of gloves for just one person, but she was a very posh lady.

Let's take a look at them, starting with the Long Gloves (I've arbitrarily grouped the gloves for my sanity):

Black kid leather, with the suede side on the outside. There are some pintucks down the back - the leather is quite thick so it looks a bit like cording.

The usual thumb attachment.

All the seam allowances are on the outside and sewn by hand.

The leather gloves in this set have a small, vaguely diamond-shaped piece in between the fingers as well as the gusset that most gloves have.

Stamped on the inside you can see the size: 6/3 and then the words "REAL KID". The 3rd line has become blurred through wear; to me, it looks like "--USTRIA ARGENTINA" (the first two letters being completely illegible). The last line is "MADE IN ARGENTINA". Edit: My Spanish-speaking boyfriend informs me that the middle line is "INDUSTRIA ARGENTINA" meaning "Product of Argentina."

Here is a brown satin pair. This is the only satin pair and it has a fold line down the length of the glove, behind the thumb, which several of the kid gloves also have.

Here, the gussets are cut separately for each finger for a total of 6 gusset pieces (two for each side of the middle and ring finger and one for the interior side of the little and index finger).

The gussets are rather wide and want to lie flat, so the fingers overlap when lain flat. I'm not sure if this is because of the construction or because of the way there were stored.

Another interesting feature of these gussets: they meet the front and back
at a point. Most gloves either have a continuous gusset so the front and back don't meet, or the gusset stops and the front and back are sewn only to each other for a few stitches.

The interior side seam is backstitched by hand and the edges are left unfinished.

A light grey kid pair - the fingers were too short for me, but the thumb was too long. As with many of the leather gloves, the cuff is stretched from pulling them on and off.

The usual thumb seam for leather gloves, with the main glove overlapping the thumb, but here there is a double row of backstitching.

A slight irregularity with the gussets. The photo shows the area between my middle and index fingers where there is a continuous gusset and the little diamond piece. However, between the ring and little fingers there is a seam in the gusset with both seam allowances turned to the inside. Unlike the black gloves, where all seam allowances were on the outside, these gusset edges are covered by the main glove body.

The stretched cuff.

A close up of the backstitching on the side seam.

The stamp on the inside with the size, 7 1/2, and "MADE IN FRANCE"

Lots more to come! If you have questions or want any more details (either information or pictures) leave a comment and I'll get that for you.