The fetishistic appeal of gloves A new layering piece arrives for winter

A detail (perhaps the detail) that stands out when watching Ryan Murphy's new TV series All’s Fair is that, for a series about rich Californian female lawyers, the protagonists wear a remarkable amount of gloves. In the context of the show, halfway between the extravagant camp of Dallas and the power fantasy, the accessory takes on its own meaning: the glove, especially the female one, transfigures the appearance of the hand making it “less human”, indicates detachment in both literal and figurative senses and suggests both bon-ton elegance and a sense of domination and control.

The choice of this accessory does not seem casual. And we find ourselves precisely in a year where the presence of gloves, both male and female, has been very much felt on the runway and online, as well as in real life. But if in the past the glove was simply a glove, albeit loaded with vague fetish aspects, this year both designers and independent tastemakers have wanted to make it a standalone layering element. But let's give some examples.

The glove as a new layering element

In the men's FW25 show of Saint Laurent, the one with formal suits dropped into gigantic cuissards or paired with leather pants, all the models wore slightly longer-than-normal black leather gloves, but their presence was highlighted by the fact that the shirt cuff was longer and rolled up over the jacket sleeve. A "crumpled" effect that often returned to give movement to monochromatic or formal looks. For the subsequent women's show, the trick returned, but this time the glove was flared, with a slightly vintage line, and this time it was the dress sleeve that slipped inside it.

Another type of styling that is emerging online, through those collector pages of looks like @uniformdisplay, is the glove paired with jewelry. The image of a look by designer Claudio Conde, who filmed himself wearing a Bottega Veneta braided glove on which he had worn a gold ring, went viral on the Internet. The ring worn over the glove has also returned on other creators and social media bon vivants, with another variation that sees the glove slipped into the jacket or coat sleeve and “secured” externally by a bracelet.

How glove styling works

In both cases, the glove interacted with the rest of the look through overlaps with other elements that highlighted it. No longer a simple cover but part of the broader “mechanism” of the final look. A detail also seen in the FW25 shows of Auralee, Enfants Riches Déprimés and Tom Ford. Its reduced dimensions (we're talking obviously about look details) are compensated by the fact that hands are usually one of the most evident parts of another person. The fetish charm of the glove also concerns the meanings of hiding them.

More “normal” styling was certainly not lacking: from Celine, Anrealage and LaQuan Smith we saw the open-palm glove, sexier, while elsewhere (from Rick Owens to Mugler, passing through Gucci and Ferrari) the glove remained “normal”. Curious, however, how both Kidsuper and Dunhill (two brands quite at opposite ends) presented looks that included driving gloves, colored and reinforced, certainly more vibrant than the usual men's glove. This brings us to another “occasion” glove that dominated most of the women's runways: the opera glove.

The second life of the opera glove

Obviously the queen of gloves is Miuccia Prada: last year she set a trend with the Miu Miu FW24 show, where enormous gloves that looked like those of a goalkeeper or a mechanic were paired with '60s-toned ensembles. A styling that returned in the closing of the latest SS26 show. But in the Prada household, gloves, especially opera gloves, are an element that recurs practically always. In the latest Prada SS26 there were tons of them and they have multiplied virtually everywhere.

There have been two types of opera gloves on the latest runways: leather ones, very tall, often up to under the shoulders, which in some cases end up becoming an extension of the dress (we saw it well with Pierpaolo Piccioli's new Valentino, but also from MM6 and Dilara Findikoglu) or in transparent version, in gauze or lace, which appeared in shows with very different tones like Luar and Simone Rocha.

Elsewhere the very long glove “isolated” the exposed section of the shoulder and the upper arm, making sure that, in a look where the body was more or less covered, this section of bare skin was highlighted, giving a touch of sensuality to the look. In an original way, Dario Vitale at Versace had the Versace models wear a single long opera glove, whose heavy decorations were matched to those of the bra.

So many gloves in a world of screens

The only big doubt that arises observing this proliferation of different gloves (according to an interesting suggestion from @uniformdisplay, they can be “worn” as pure decoration even by slipping them into the pocket) is whether the creative vision of the various designers, undoubtedly evocative, will actually meet product innovation. What we mean is that, more than ever today, anyone buying a glove will look for one equipped with that technology that allows interacting with touchscreens.

Everyone, today, always has the phone in hand and unfortunately nothing loses so much aura as having to constantly take off the gloves to answer the phone, write or send messages or take photos with the smartphone. The fact is interesting because it calls into question the validity of a category of accessory like gloves which, as stunning and opulent as they may be, clash with a daily evidence as prosaic as our smartphone dependency. Many are those who, having to buy a pair, look for a version equipped with this “facilitation” so necessary for today's life.

In this sense, even a glove can become a metaphor for what innovation means in fashion. And while we wait for them to implement it also for the most elegant leather gloves, with temperatures dropping, let's consider ourselves lucky that the designers have given us so many options to choose from.

Takeaways

- This season, gloves have become a standalone layering element in outfits, as, through overlaps with rolled-up sleeves and prominent cuffs, they add texture and movement to formal looks, as demonstrated in the FW25 shows of Saint Laurent and Tom Ford.

- In the styling seen on social media and runways, gloves are paired with jewelry with rings worn over them or with bracelets that secure them externally.

- While the open-palm gloves, proposed by Celine, Anrealage, and LaQuan Smith, introduce a sensual allure that hides only the fingers, the classic ones, seen from Rick Owens to Mugler passing through Gucci, maintain a discreet silhouette, although both elevate the manual detail as a focal point.

- The opera glove dominates women's collections, as, declined in hyper-long versions that merge with the dress or in transparent versions of gauze and lace, it isolates and enhances sections of bare skin on the shoulders, as in the visions of Prada, Versace, and Simone Rocha.

- Although their return infuses elegance and detachment into looks, gloves must evolve with touchscreen technologies to interact with smartphones, since, without such innovation, they risk clashing with the prosaic daily dependence on devices, limiting their practical adoption.