Carpincho Gloves

Table Cut Gloves

The chaps at Jeeves shop provide a made-to-order glove making service. You choose the leather and the lining and send in your measurements and the gloves are table cut by hand by specialist glove makers in Transylvania, Romania. (Cue recommendation for the wonderful Dacia Express train journey from Vienna through Transylvania to Bucharest and Old Town clothing).

Jeeves offers a less typical option for the gloves you wish to have made: leather from the carpincho (or capybara). The carpincho, native to South America, is the biggest species of rodent.

Traditional glove leathers have their qualities, like soft deerskin and pliable wild peccary (pigskin) — and Jeeves Store provides these options — but what does carpincho leather provide? Carpincho leather has a grain that stretches in one direction, which makes it ideal for glove making as it prevents the gloves from becoming loose over time. The leather is also heat resistant, but I'm unsure how a glove benefits from this — unless you're holding a hot mug of tea out in the wilds.

The carpincho gloves from Jeeves shop are made in nubuck in a variety of colours, with the grain rubbed down to produce a soft suede-like nap. The verdant green carpincho gloves you see here are an unlined ready-made option. Didn't Miss Skiffins wear green gloves to great literary effect in Dickens' Great Expectations? Whether there is any significance to the colour of the gloves in that novel, we understand it as a gentleman's classic.

Quirky Gloves

A special thing to note about the gloves supplied by Jeeves is that they incorporate traditional 'quirks', which are  'diamond shaped pieces of leather that go between the finger, giving the fingers more shape and allowing for more movement.' 

If you are choosing made-to-order gloves, lining options include cashmere, lambswool and rabbit fur, but you can also choose unlined or a detachable liner.

If a gentleman is known by his gloves and his shoes, then a pair of carpincho gloves will have you properly covered for the upper appendages.