I was recently in the Dents Factory shop on a Saturday and met Richard and Shobha Edgell – they had travelled all the way from Hertford.  I would like to think it was for the sole purpose of visiting our factory shop, but they were also visiting friends for lunch nearby.

They were very interested in our UK factory produced gloves, so I invited them to see our glove museum. They were very impressed.

Richard is a classic car enthusiast (1951 mark VI Bentley) and bought several pairs of gloves, mainly with his car in mind.

Shobha bought peccary driving gloves and later told me that “wearing the gloves added to the driving experience.”  Shobha kindly sent me a lovely photograph of herself riding side saddle at Audley End – of course wearing our gloves!

It was great to meet both Richard and Shobha, who as well as being car enthusiasts, are also glove enthusiasts!

Deborah Dents Creative Director

HRH The Princess Royal’s recent visit to Dents glove factory (“the first new glove factory in Great Britain for 150 years”) was featured on both BBC and ITV – just click on the links to view.

And, there are some great pictures of the visit on Warminster Web.

wool lined two – tone peccary glove

by John Roberts

Dents is one of only a few glove manufacturers who are still able to create gloves using real peccary leather (a peccary is a mammal from South America that resembles a pig). The reason is that only a master cutter with unique skills and much experience can cut this wonderful leather. It also requires a hand machinist with dexterity and many years experience to sew it. Possibly, this is why peccary leather gloves are increasingly found in fewer and fewer of the world’s finest stores.

Peccary leather is unique in its strength and character. In time the leather will assume a golden bloom, and acquire its own distinctly unique colour.

Beware, there are many imitation peccaries around, but the soft, almost buttery feel of the real thing is impossible to duplicate!

Take a look at a couple of reviews of Dents gloves appearing on major blogs in the UKand US – both blogs are extremely popular, very different, and well worth checking in with regularly.

When one is so involved in the fashion business, it is sometimes easy to forget the wonderful heritage that has led us to the modern styles of today. This week BBC2 did an excellent feature programme on Dents which underlined the company’s extraordinary heritage as well as its current leadership in global trends.

The programme was shown as part of the BBC’s antique Flog It series, which regularly gets an audience of two million viewers each weekday. Presenter Paul Martin was clearly impressed when he learned that there were 32 different stages in making a Dents glove. The BBC camera crew was kept busy in the Dents main factory in Warminster where Dents’ Creative Director Deborah Mooreexplained a little about the different leathers used in gloving and showed samples of leathers, including the soft and stretchy leather from hairsheep and also the rarer peccary leather – a pair of gloves made from peccary leather can cost well over £200. The film included close-ups of the intricate handsewing that goes into some of Dents beautiful leather gloves and also covered the ironing and finishing processes.

It is a lovely film and is still available for viewing here.

The film crew didn’t go into the Dents museum – just as well really; with some of the wonderful old items there including gloves worn by Lord Nelson and even Elizabeth 1st, it might have been tempting to try and include those in the Flog It auctions!

Some of you may have noticed a new section in our Online Shop – the Heritage Collection. Over the years the Dents brand has expanded into many product categories and has served many different markets. With our Heritage collection we’re going right back to our roots, not only as glovemakers, but also as purveyors of luxury goods made by the very finest craftspeople in Britain. And Britain is pretty well represented – from England, we havegloves of course, made right here in our factory in Warminster, as well as our new Dentscufflinks, which are individually hand stamped and enameled. Dents socks are knitted in Wales and finished with hand linked toes which give a wonderfully comfy fit you just can’t duplicate with amachine made sock. And from Scotland we have Dentsscarves, made from finest Scottish cashmere and other fine yarns. One last thing – we’re launching our new Autumn / Winter Collection this week, so look out for our special discount code, which will be sent to those of you who haveregistered on our website.

Last week Dents played host to the crew from BBC’s Flog it! antiques programme. The art of glove making was filmed for a segment in the popular day time television show. Flog it! regularly gets an audience of 2 million viewers each weekday – around 25% of the television audience.

The film crew spent several hours filming both in our museum and in our factory. Deborah Moore, Dents’ Creative Director, showed presenter Paul Martin the glove making process for a pair of Peccary leather gloves, from the cutting of the leather, right the way through to the final stage of ironing the gloves.

After the filming Paul took time out to chat to the staff and sign autographs.

The program is due to air on BBC2 early in the summer. We’ll let you know the exact date when we have it.

Dents have been making leather gloves since 1777, and in that time we’ve learned a thing or two about making them fit.

Our peccary gloves are made by hand in our Warminster factory here in England. Each one is individually hand cut and hand stitched. Due to the special nature of the leather we only make two pairs a day, and making just one pair involves 32 different operations, taking a total of around 6 hours. These particular gloves are normally lined with Scottish cashmere which has been specially knitted for us. In fact, they are made as two separate gloves: a lining, and an outer glove. We then fit the lining into the outer glove to create an exceptional fit.

Many styles of Dents gloves contain components and examples of the glovemaker’s craft not often found today – for example quirks, which are small diamond shaped pieces of leather sewn at the base of the fingers, where they are attached to the hand of the glove to improve the fit, or hand felling which involves stitching the hem of glove to the lining as well as the back of glove, helping the glove keep its shape.

Dennis, our head leather cutter, has his own explanation for the fit. “It’s because of the ‘hidden fit’ – the amount of “stretch” the cutter puts into the leather before cutting. It allows the glove leather to stretch on your hand, but then due to this pre-stretching it retracts again keeping its shape and fit. It’s a skill that comes from years of experience. “

Whatever the reason for the fit, it’s part of a commitment to quality which runs through the whole of our Collection…