I’m always amazed by how many French producers there are for high-end leather goods. There must be dozens of small firms and independent makers – plus the giant that is Hermes – for things such as bags, belts, and wallets. Of course, what exists today is just a fraction of what used to exist generations ago. For example, the small, sleepy town of Millau, located in the southwest of France, used to be considered the nation’s glove-making capital. At one point, the town has more than fifty glove-making firms, with hundreds of sewing machines rattling away. Today, there are about five.
Still, the ones that remain are the best at what they do. Lavabre Cadet, for example, is a small workshop that was founded in 1946, just shortly after the war, by Pierre Lavabre (a young man at the time, and the son of a glove-making family). His company’s work was so good that, in the 1960s and ‘70s, Lavabre Cadet produced for the top-end lines of Chanel, Givenchy, and Dior. Yves Saint Laurent (the man, not the firm) also once called the company his glover of choice.
Today, they’re one of the few firms that still produces gloves from kidskin, which is the skin of a young goat. Kidskin is famed for its softness. In fact, the phrase “handle with kid gloves” – which means to handle a delicate situation with care – comes out of the leather’s legendary feel. These are clearly not the kind of gloves you use for mowing the lawn. For a while, they were a sign that the wearer was rich enough to only engage in genteel indoor idleness. In other times, they were viewed as ostentatious and effete.
Maybe for those reasons – or because good kidskin is hard to come by – most glovers nowadays substitute it for lambskin or nappa. My friend Reginald-Jerome de Mans once has a great essay at A Suitable Wardrobe about how he searched through all of France for a maker who would produce a pair of kidskin gloves, after losing his in a NYC cab. After much work, he finally found his at Lavabre Cadet.
I bought a brown silk-lined pair last week at A Suitable Wardrobe. I can’t say they’re softer than my lambskin gloves, but they are exceptionally well made and fit like … well, a glove. Whether they’re worth the premium or not, I can’t say, but along with proper fit and good make, what are clothes besides a bit of romance? Lavabre Cadet is one of the few producers left in a town that’s renown for its glovers, and will make a beautiful pair of dress gloves from fine kidskin leather. I’m only worried that I’ll ruin this delicate pair, which makes me think maybe I need a pair of kid gloves to handle my kid gloves.
