Gloves were a must have for any proper lady of the Georgian era, no outfit was considered complete without them, and an ungloved hand might even be considered scandalous. Although a major part of fashion and accessorization, gloves still served a lot of practical purposes. Ladies would knit gloves with openings in the finger tips so that they could still carry out fine crafts and stitch work. A cousin of the glove, fur muffs were also worn to keep the hands warm. Beyond these practical uses, glove etiquette was more complicated than one might assume.

Day wear gloves were shorter color varied greatly, while evening wear gloves went as far up as just past the elbow with the most popular color being white. Pictured on the left is your average lady’s regular day gloves, while the more elegant and sleek evening gloves are depicted on the right. These particular evening gloves are from 1805 and made form leather, other popular materials were silk, linen, and any other sort of animal skin.

Another interesting aspect of what I’ll call “glove culture” is that men touching women in company without gloves on was considered far too intimate, and ladies usually only removed their gloves to eat. Also, as previously mentioned evening gloves were very long so almost at Georgian era evening dresses have short sleeves. Another odd thing to note is that British women took to wearing baggy evening gloves that somewhat resemble disconnected dress sleeves.

Pictured here is a lady in these baggy gloves an a Grecian influenced evening gown(notice light color, high waist, and ornamented turban).

Gloves remained a staple in western European fashion for a long time after the Georgian era, especially among the rich and powerful. In fact, gloves didn’t really go out of fashion until the 1960s, after a brief revival due to mod style.