Leather gloves have been worn by people for thousands of years. The unique properties of leather allow for both a comfortable fit and useful grip for the wearer. The grain present on the leather and the pores present in the leather gives the gloves the unique ability to assist the wearer as they grip an object. As soft as a leather glove may be, its pores and grain provide a level of friction when “gripped” against an item or surface.

A common use for leather gloves is sporting events. In baseball, a baseball glove is an oversized leather glove with a web used for fielding the ball. Leather gloves are also used in handball, cycling, and American football.

Early Formula One racing drivers used steering wheels taken directly from road cars. They were normally made from wood, necessitating the use of driving gloves.

Leather gloves provide protection from occupational hazards. For example, beekeepers use leather gloves to avoid being stung by bees. Construction workers might use leather gloves for added grip and for protecting their hands. Welders use gloves too for protection against electrical shocks, extreme heat, ultraviolet and infrared.

Criminals have been known to wear leather gloves during the commission of crimes. Gloves are worn by criminals because the tactile properties of the leather allow for good grip and dexterity. These properties are the result of a grain present on the surface of the leather. The grain makes the surface of the leather unique to each glove. Investigators are able to dust for the glove prints left behind from the leather the same way in which they dust for fingerprints

• Skiing gloves are padded and reinforced to protect from the cold, and from injury by skis.
• Touchscreen gloves – made with conductive material to enable the wearer’s natural electric capacitance to interact with capacitive touchscreen devices without the need to remove one’s gloves
  • Finger tip conductivity; where conductive yarns or a conductive patch is found only on the tips of the fingers (typically the index finger and thumb) thus allowing for basic touch response
  • Full hand conductivity; where the entire glove is made from conductive materials allowing for robust tactile touch and dexterity good for accurate typing and multi-touch response
• Underwater Hockey gloves – with protective padding, usually of silicone rubber or latex, across the back of the fingers and knuckles to protect from impact with the puck; usually only one, either left- or right-hand, is worn depending on which is the playing hand.
• Washing mitt or Washing glove: a tool for washing the body (one’s own, or of a child, a patient, a lover).
• Webbed gloves – a swim training device or swimming aid.
• Weightlifting gloves
• Wired glove
  • Power Glove – an alternate controller for use with the Nintendo Entertainment System
• Wheelchair gloves – for users of manual Wheelchairs

Lady’s Fashion[edit]

Western lady’s gloves for formal and semi-formal wear come in three lengths: wrist (“matinee”), elbow, and opera or full-length (over the elbow, reaching to the biceps). Satin and stretch satin are popular and mass-produced. Some women wear gloves as part of “dressy” outfits, such as for church and weddings. Long white gloves are common accessories for teenage girls attending formal events such as prom, quinceañera, cotillion, or formal ceremonies at church, such as confirmation.

Others[edit]

In Japan, white gloves are worn frequently. Work-oriented white gloves are worn for activities such as gardening and cleanup; “dress” white gloves are worn by professionals who want a clean public appearance, such as taxi drivers, police, politicians and elevator operators.^[27] However white gloves are not recommended for touching old books and similar antiquities.

Gloves appear to be of great antiquity. They are depicted in an ancient Egyptian tomb dating to the 5th dynasty.[4] According to some translations of Homer’s The Odyssey, Laërtes is described as wearing gloves while walking in his garden so as to avoid the brambles.[5] (Other translations, however, insist that Laertes pulled his long sleeves over his hands.) Herodotus, in The History of Herodotus (440 BC), tells how Leotychides was incriminated by a glove (gauntlet) full of silver that he received as a bribe.[6] There are occasional references to the use of gloves among the Romans as well. Pliny the Younger (c. 100), his uncle’s shorthand writer wore gloves in winter so as not to impede the elder Pliny’s work.[7]

A gauntlet, which could be a glove made of leather or some kind of metal armour, was a strategic part of a soldier’s defense throughout the Middle Ages, but the advent of firearms made hand-to-hand combat rare. As a result, the need for gauntlets disappeared.

During the 13th century, gloves began to be worn by ladies as a fashion ornament.[5] They were made of linen and silk, and sometimes reached to the elbow.[5] Such worldly accoutrements were not for holy women, according to the early 13th century Ancrene Wisse, written for their guidance.[8] Sumptuary laws were promulgated to restrain this vanity: against samite gloves in Bologna, 1294, against perfumed gloves in Rome, 1560.[9]

A Paris corporation or guild of glovers (gantiers) existed from the thirteenth century. They made them in skin or in fur.[10]

By 1440, in England glovers had become members of the Dubbers or Bookbinders Guild until they formed their own guild during the reign of Elizabeth I. The Glovers’ Company was incorporated in 1613.[11]

It was not until the 16th century that gloves reached their greatest elaboration; however, when Queen Elizabeth I set the fashion for wearing them richly embroidered and jewelled,[5] and for putting them on and taking them off during audiences, to draw attention to her beautiful hands.[12] The 1592 “Ditchley” portrait of her features her holding leather gloves in her left hand. In Paris, the gantiers became gantiers parfumeurs, for the scented oils, musk, ambergris and civet, that perfumed leather gloves, but their trade, which was an introduction at the court of Catherine de Medici,[13] was not specifically recognised until 1656, in a royal brevet. Makers of knitted gloves, which did not retain perfume and had less social cachet, were organised in a separate guild, of bonnetiers[14] who might knit silk as well as wool. Such workers were already organised in the fourteenth century. Knitted gloves were a refined handiwork that required five years of apprenticeship; defective work was subject to confiscation and burning.[15] In the 17th century, gloves made of soft chicken skin became fashionable. The craze for gloves called “limericks” took hold. This particular fad was the product of a manufacturer in Limerick, Ireland, who fashioned the gloves from the skin of unborn calves.

Leather gloves have been worn by people for thousands of years. The unique properties of leather allow for both a comfortable fit and useful grip for the wearer. The grain present on the leather and the pores present in the leather gives the gloves the unique ability to assist the wearer as they grip an object. As soft as a leather glove may be, its pores and grain provide a level of friction when “gripped” against an item or surface.

A common use for leather gloves is sporting events. In baseball, a baseball glove is an oversized leather glove with a web used for fielding the ball. Leather gloves are also used in handball, cycling, and American football.

Early Formula One racing drivers used steering wheels taken directly from road cars. They were normally made from wood, necessitating the use of driving gloves.

Leather gloves provide protection from occupational hazards. For example, beekeepers use leather gloves to avoid being stung by bees. Construction workers might use leather gloves for added grip and for protecting their hands. Welders use gloves too for protection against electrical shocks, extreme heat, ultraviolet and infrared.

Criminals have been known to wear leather gloves during the commission of crimes. Gloves are worn by criminals because the tactile properties of the leather allow for good grip and dexterity. These properties are the result of a grain present on the surface of the leather. The grain makes the surface of the leather unique to each glove. Investigators are able to dust for the glove prints left behind from the leather the same way in which they dust for fingerprints