Today’s post is sort of in accordance with my resolution to clear out my inbox. You see, more than a year ago, the fabulous Madelene (aka Gidget Bananas) sent me a link to a post on A Dress A Day that featured a vintage swan-like satin gown with faux feathers and plenty of tulle for sale on Vintage Textile‘s Treasure Hunt page. Of course, the gown has long since been snapped up by some lucky bride or some lucky collector. Who knows?
Anyhow, revisiting Madelene’s long-neglected e-mail inspired me to browse the current Treasure Hunt offerings. There, I found gloves and lots of ’em. I don’t know about you, but I love gloves. There is something so ladylike and elegant about a nice pair of properly worn kid gloves, long or short. Check out these fabulous French evening gloves in beige:
Of course, if you are planning to wear gloves on your wedding day, you may very well have questions as to the proper usage of such an accessory. Check out Hudson Valley Weddings’ comprehensive glove guide, “Gloves, a Wedding Style-Setter.” Or visit eHow, which, surprisingly, has a shorter basic glove-wearing guide.
STEP 3: Choose the glove length, determined by the number of buttons, based on the type of dress worn. For instance, both the 6-button glove, which ends just below the elbow, and the 8-button glove, which reaches the elbow, look best with a short-sleeved gown; the 16-button glove, also known as the opera-length glove, extends to the upper arm and accents a sleeveless or strapless gown. Forgo gloves when donning a long-sleeved dress, or else wear wrist-length gloves.
STEP 4: Slit the seam of a long glove at the underside of the ring finger to be able to slip your finger out during the ceremonial ring exchange – resew the seam after the wedding. If you opt for shorter wrist-length gloves, you can simply remove the glove and hand it to a bridal attendant.
STEP 5: Slip your now beautifully adorned finger discreetly back in your glove, or if you took off the glove completely, leave it off for the remainder of the ceremony.
Don’t forget, however, to put your glove back on at the end of the ceremony, before photographs are taken, as you don’t want to look back at those pictures and think of Michael Jackson. But always, always, always take your gloves off before eating and drinking, and keep them off while cutting the cake.
Fun glove fact #1: The mousquetaire, or opening in the wrist of a long glove, like the one shown above, was put in so that women would not call undue attention to their “disrobing” in order to eat. It was thought by the Victorians to be in poor taste – and frankly, rather shocking – to be constantly putting on and taking off one’s gloves. The mousquetaire allows for only the hand to be removed from the glove for dinner, with the fingers of the glove tucked out of sight on a lady’s wrist.
Fun glove fact #2: Women used to wear their gloves far too small in order that their hands should stay cupped, and look smaller and more feminine. There were special hooks involved in getting the gloves on and off if a lady chose this style of digital adornment.
Wow, Bacon’s Mom, I was SO not aware that the opening at the wrist had a name. And a cute name, at that.
Fun fact number two scares the heck out of me…the lengths women go to to be considered beautiful is sometimes quite insane. I say go to rather than went to because even though hand cupping, foot binding, and such things are out of style, we’ve still got tanning salons and a wide variety of painful beauty treatments we can take advantage of, if we are so inclined.
Bacon’s Mom is one up on me; I am familiar with the term mousquetaire, but as used to describe a particular style of glove (long and wrinkled, oddly enough, rather than gauntleted), and not as a particular part of a glove.
I love the long opera-length gloves, which are not so easy to find if you like them to actually fit your hands, and said hands are inconveniently long and narrow. New opera-length kid gloves will set the happy purchaser back some $300. I had a beautiful pair from my mother, and I wore them crossing the street one night when it started to rain. Alas, the rain raised blisters on my gloves! I can only assume that they were not “washable kid.” Silk gloves are cheaper, so I suppose I should look into those …