Gloves, Past and Present

by Willard M. Smith

Already we are somewhat familiar with kid gloves, from our detailed study of the great industry of Grenoble, including the dressers’ works at Annonay. Nearly all the kid skins used in glove-making are procured in Europe, and the production really is limited to a very few countries. As we have seen, France leads. Next comes Italy, then Germany, Austria, and—up to the disaster of August, 1914—Belgium. Several months are consumed, and a dozen or more processes are necessary, before kid skins are in the market as glove leather. These operations have been fully described in the chapter immediately preceding. When the finished skins appear “in the white” they are ready for the dyer.

An expert goes through the skins and assorts them for the different colors for which they are best adapted. For instance, some skins will make good tan shades, but would not make greys—and so on, through the entire list of colors. As all skins take the black dye well, it follows that the last sortings go into black. Black and white are the easiest of all to dye; and perfect skins, dyed white, show to the best advantage of any—while grey is a color which is a bête noir to all manufacturers and dyers. Hundreds of dollars have been literally thrown away in an attempt to produce some particular shade. Suede leather yields more readily and accurately to the dyer’s art than glacé, and furnishes a greater variety of shades. For this reason, and because of their fine, velvety surface, they are considered by many the most beautiful of all gloves; and by the fastidious are preferred for opera and evening wear.

Kid skins produced in other countries than France all have about the same characteristics. But French Nationals remain invariably the best. It may be added that kids raised in low, flat countries, like Belgium, while presenting a fine appearance, never have the strength of the highland skins.

Lambskins, like kid, are nearly all found in Europe, but they cover a much wider range of territory. Like kid skins, they are carefully nurtured and guarded against imperfections. They are grown in Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Russia and the Balkan States, the product of the latter being known—like the sheepskins for “cape” purposes—as “Oriental leather.” For fine lambskin gloves the best leather of all comes from northern Italy, and is termed, commercially, “Tuscany skins”; these rival kid skins for fine grain and durability. Next in value comes the fine French lamb known as “Rigord.” Then follow the Spanish skins. The Russian (Kasan) and Oriental skins are of equal value with some of the above named, many of them running very fine in grain and producing remarkably durable gloves. As they tend to be heavier in weight, however, the larger part of this class of lambskins finds its way into men’s gloves. It is said that fully 80% of Oriental leather goes to German and English tanneries, which prepare more especially materials for the heavier grades of gloves.

In the tanning or dressing of lambskins, the processes are practically the same as in the preparation of kid and goat skins for the glove manufacturer. Lambskins also are subjected to the same examination by experts to determine the colors they will take best. In fact, the only real difference between fine kid and fine lamb gloves is that the former is of a more delicate, yet firmer, grain, and produces a better wearing article with more intrinsic value.

Nearly all colors, applied in dyeing both kid and lamb gloves, are put on with a brush. The skins are laid on marble slabs, and the color brushed on, a sufficient number of coats being given to produce the desired shade and to fix it thoroughly and evenly. This explains why colored gloves remain white on the inside, as the dyes do not strike through. Some of the light, or extremely delicate tints, however—as pink, cream, azure, lilac—will not take the color with brushing. In such cases, the skin must be immersed in the dye, or “dipped”; and then the color shows, of course, on both exterior and interior.

After the dyer’s work is done, and the skins would appear to a novice ready for the cutter, still another process has to be gone through, requiring an entirely different kind of skilled labor. This is the process of “doling”—mentioned a few paragraphs back, in connection with chamois—and it consists in reducing each skin to a uniform thickness throughout, as nearly as possible. The doler lays the skin on a marble slab and with a broad, flat knife, sharp as a razor, goes over the inner surface, planing or doling off the uneven places. A thoroughly good cutter always doles his own skins. Some manufacturers, however, employ dolers for this purpose exclusively.

Such are the leading leathers used in the making of fine gloves. Developments in tanning have also brought into use the skins of many animals ordinarily considered of no value to the glove trade. While deer, sheep, kid and calf skins in former days were used exclusively, in our times the skins of dogs, foxes, bears, the cow, the colt, the kangaroo—and almost every hair animal—are employed to some extent. Most of these, however, could never pass for fine products, even among the uninitiated—with the possible exception of colt; and they are used only by inferiors in the trade, with whom the present discussion of glove-making has nothing to do. These coarse leathers are honest enough, however, in the hands of Esquimaux, backwoodsmen, and people who are obliged to provide out of the materials within reach warm coverings for the hands. But, in such cases, the fur is usually left on the hide, deceiving no one.

And now we come to the actual turning of the leather into gloves. Since Xavier Jouvin’s invention, the glove cutter has not actually cut out gloves. The old method of tracing the pattern and following it with the scissors has completely vanished. But the glove cutter, still so-called, exercises a great deal of care and skill in cutting oblong-shaped pieces of leather which will make exactly the size he stamps on them when, later, the gloves are cut out by means of steel dies. In doing this, the cutter uses pasteboard patterns, to be sure; but these are simply guides to enable him to put exactly the right amount of leather into each piece that he cuts, in order to produce the size desired. To the cutter each skin he takes up becomes a new problem. As no two faces are alike, so also no two skins are alike—not even those of the same class.

The cutter first stretches the skin carefully to ascertain or measure its elasticity. Then he applies his pattern to see how he can get the best results quantitatively. In other words, a cutter must exercise the utmost ingenuity to get as many gloves as possible out of the skins he is working on, and not let any of the leather go to waste. In many glove factories, the foreman “taxes” the skins as they are given out to the cutters; that is, he fixes the number of pairs of gloves the cutter must turn out for a certain quantity of skins. After the cutter has stretched, pulled, measured, and finally cut out his oblong piece of leather, he marks the size on it and lays it aside for the calibres, which will be shown in operation later on.