Quality Garden Tools Blog

V&A Gardening Gloves

Posted on 09/04/11 | Posted by The Fat Gardener

Great news for those of you who, like me, love Ethel Gloves. The Victoria & Albert Museum have collaborated with Ethel to launch a really exciting new range of stunning gardening gloves.

Ethel Gloves are some of the best garden tools a lady can own - technically, the gloves are designed to snugly fit the contours of a woman’s hands; all the palms and fingers are covered in synthetic suede which lasts up to twice as long as leather but is just as comfortable. The fingers are also reinforced for strength, but still offer excellent 'feel' and have rubberised grips and extended cuffs. All Ethel Gloves are machine washable, so however dirty the job you have to do, the gloves will look as good as new next day!

The new V&A gloves are very special, chosen in conjunction with The Victoria & Albert Museum, Ethel Gloves along with the museum's own experts used the huge V&A fabric archive to source three very special designs to help celebrate the launch of exhibition 'The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900'. The three designs are: Tudor, Regency and Canterbury and all are highly symbolic of the design movement and the age in which they were conceived.

The exhibition gathers together some of the greatest masterpieces in painting together with sculpture, design, furniture and architecture as well as the fashion and literature of the era. It also examines the work of many of the personalities of the aesthetic movement including William Morris, James McNeill Whistler, Frederic Leighton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones and Oscar Wilde. After London, 'The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900' will travel to the Musée D’Orsay in Paris in September 2011 before travelling to the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, opening in February 2012.

The three new gloves epitomise the movement and have been named Tudor, Regency and Canterbury. The Tudor glove is taken from a Turnbull and Stockdale furnishing fabric from 1911 and shows green tulips set on a background of small navy and white checks. The Regency glove is taken from an F. Steiner and Co furnishing fabric from 1911 and shows intertwining wildflowers and berries in red and white on a navy background. The Canterbury glove is taken from a Newman, Smith and Newman furnishing fabric from 1909 and shows white and pale grey roses set on a bright red background.

The V&A range will be available at the Ethel Gloves stand at the 2011 RHS Chelsea Flower Show (stand EA/26) and also in the V&A Museum shop, on www.qualitygardentools.com and on www.ethelgloves.co.uk from May 2011.

Any comments? Please email us at info@qualitygardentools.com

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