Description: A captivating history of gloves both real and mythical, practical and high fashion.
This beautifully illustrated history of gloves draws on examples from across the world to explore their cultural significance. From hand-knitted mittens to exquisitely embroidered confections, and from the three-fingered gloves of medieval shepherds to Bluetooth-enabled examples that function like a mobile phone, gloves' extraordinary variety is a tribute to human ingenuity. So, too, is the remarkable diversity of their--often contradictory--cultural associations. They have been linked to honor, identity, and status, but also to decadence and deceit. In this book, Anne Green discusses gloves both as material objects with their own fascinating history and as fictional creations in folktales, literature, films, etiquette manuals, paintings, and advertisements. Looking to the runway, Green even explores their recent resurgence as objects of high fashion.Review Quotes: "Between Carrie's rubber dish gloves for her daily smoke and that grand gown finale on the bridge in Paris, gloves played a memorable supporting role in the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That . . .. This lively new book uses photographs and pop culture to unfurl the cultural significance of the humble glove across eras, and never were manners and mores more important than in the etiquette-obsessed Gilded Age. Read it to be armed for their imminent revival."-- "Zoomer"