Gloves: A Lady's Accessory

There used to be a time when a proper lady would never go out without her gloves, but, for better or for worse, that time is no more. Even so, a pair of gloves are a perfect finishing accessory to a Lolita coordinate, especially now that the weather is taking a nose dive into winter.

Nearly every mainstream store at the moment, from Walmart to Nordstrom, is going to be selling nice ladies gloves for the winter. Places like Marshalls or T.J.Maxx usually have a really nice selection for around 10 dollars that include lots of real leather or lush velvet gloves. These are an elegant choice for chilly weather as they are typically very warm and much daintier looking than a pair of stretchy knit gloves. Look for a pair to match your Lolita winter coat or jacket! Black and brown pairs are the most easily found but with a little luck you can find whites, creams, and even bold blues or reds.

While unsuited for keeping your hands warm while throwing snowballs, vintage ladies gloves are still a nice choice when you want to wear something dainty on your hands. The best part about vintage gloves is you can usually pick them up for really cheap at flea markets and yard sales, typically a dollar or two a pair, and they come in tons of different styles. The downsides though are that vintage gloves are often itty bitty and you're probably going to be out of luck if you have large hands or very long fingers, they are also mainly found in white or ivory colors, although, with some hunting, I have found various pastel colors as well as black gloves.

Lace or crochet gloves are also fairly easily found in trendy, costume or specialty shops. These can be found in a range of colors. Because of the wide range of styles and colors in lace and crochet gloves they are suited for any kind of Lolita but black lace gloves tend to work best with Gothic Lolita while ivory crochet gloves tend to work best with Classic or Country Lolita.

Not all gloves are created equal

Especially since gloves are seen as an alternative or costume fashion nowadays many gloves being sold in stores are often of a poor quality. They tend to be one-size-fits all too large, which often leads to baggy gloves, so keep in mind that, just like everything, gloves should not be ill fitting. You don't want it to look like you're wearing a cheap lace sack on your hands! If you can, you should really only buy gloves that you can try on first to see how they look on your hands. And with everything in Lolita, making sure they are made of a nice lace is going to make or break a pair of gloves.

Glove Etiquette

Like many things that were popularly worn in the past, gloves have a long list of nit picky etiquette to go with them. Since gloves have fallen out of popular wear in the past 50 years, and we're just going to be wearing them with Lolita, you can pretty much throw all of these out the window, much to the dismay of ladies who are old enough to have worn gloves in their youth! The one thing that you should keep in mind though is that you should really take your gloves off before you eat, if for the fact alone that you're probably going to end up staining your gloves if you try to eat while wearing them.

Vintage glove ad found here.

Sometimes though, a little frivolous etiquette is a fun thing, so if you're interested in wearing your gloves the proper way check out this post about glove etiquette and which gloves to wear on which occasion.

How to wear gloves with Lolita

There's no real right or wrong way to wear gloves with Lolita, so long as the gloves are of nice quality and match the rest of your coordinate, but there are a few things to keep in mind when trying out gloves with your Lolita!

• Try wearing short light colored gloves with a short sleeved Sweet Lolita outfit.
• Opera length gloves look best with short or no sleeves.
• Black fingerless gloves look great peeking out from under long Gothic Lolita sleeves
• Wear a colorful pair of wrist cuffs with plain black or white gloves to make them look more colorful than they really are.
• While it's against proper glove etiquette, wear your rings over your gloves! It looks so decadent.
• Try fancying up a plain pair of gloves with a pretty brooch.
• If you're crafty, you can always add some pretty lace or beading to gloves to make them match your wardrobe perfectly.
  

There are tons of coordinates with gloves in the Gothic & Lolita Bibles! They make a perfect finishing touch to so many different kinds of Lolita outfits.

While I have a pretty large vintage glove collection sitting around in one of my dresser drawers, I rarely ever get the chance to wear them. Although, with the addition of more Classic Lolita pieces to my wardrobe, and the oncoming Winter I think I'm going to try to work them into my daily wardrobe a little more. Or at the very least, try to remember to pack a pair of pretty leather gloves into my purse to keep my hands warm when I go out and find it a little colder than I thought it was!