When is a pair of gloves insufficient? You would need more if you were going to cover the whole body. But who made gloves-as-a-dress first?

Gloves on body. Left, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac glove-dress. Right, Frederick Lee glove-dress. Photos: Pinterest and fredericklee/Instagram respectively

When it comes to a gathering of gloves, fashioned into a garment, we often think of the retired Martin Margiela, specifically his spring/summer 2001 collection. In that, there were a few looks that showed backless shell tops, patchworked with vintage gloves. It fascinated fans of Mr Margiela to no end then and those tops became some of the most popular pieces today, still sold at discreet auctions around the world. Three hours ago, Singapore’s favourite self-touted couturier shared on his Instagram page the making of a bi-coloured gown with mock turtleneck, totally made of gloves. In the accompanying message, he wrote (and we quote verbatim): “I don’t want to do pretty , I want to do otherworldly and vaguely threatening . Is being beautiful confidently weird ? !!” There is no doubt that the dress is not pretty in the traditional sense since it is quite a departure from Mr Lee’s deep love and ardent use of feathers and lace, but whether it is “otherworldly, vaguely threatening” or ”confidently weird”, we can’t say for sure. But it did look to us that someone was playing among the thorns with his garden gloves.

An SOTD reader messaged us not long after the post went live and commented, “Frederick can also be Margiela”. We chuckled when we read that, but we were not thinking so much of the Belgian deconstructionist. In the fall season of 1988, the French multidisciplinary artist and designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac (also cheekily known as JCDC) showed short dresses that were entirely made of wool-knit gloves. They were arranged in rows of four and could be considered a tiered dress (or a top, if you will). Mr de Castelbajac was enamoured with colour, so the garments were colour-blocked and had a vague whiff of Matisse about their chromatic choices. Thirteen years later, Mr Margiela took gloves to the bodice, but he used “found” Victorian leather gloves to create the top. They were arranged randomly to effect his deconstuctionist approach to design, and the results showed that clever application of even irregular shapes can take the place of traditional flat construction of garment making. The practice of deconstructing and reconstructing vintage and found materials was already evident before his Artisanal line debuted in 2006.

Mr Lee’s latest dress is created using safety gloves applied to a tailor dummy the way school children stick layers of Post-It Notes to create whatever forms they desire. For the digitally-savvy, absolutely algorithm-defying. But instead of built-in adhesive, Mr Lee worked with the less convenient needle and thread. We cannot say with certainty, but it looked to us that he had used cloth gloves, such as those worn by packers in a refrigerated warehouses, to piece together the avalanche of self-assuredness. He could have had a fun day at a hardware supply store, such as Mr D.I.Y., possibly one in Johor Baru for better cost control. As it was an evening dress, ribbed ceremonial gloves, usually worn with tuxedos, would have been a better choice or, for a truly grand occasion, silk opera gloves, but he preferred the rugged. He did not say who he made the blue and black dress for, but given the unforgiving heat we have been experiencing, it is likely for a society lady, able to enjoy uninterrupted air-conditioning from home to ballroom. Living near the equator, it must be very nice to have gloves for every occasion.