Queen Elizabeth I's gloves are seen for the first time in public, on loan from the Dents private collection especially for Selfridges to mark the store's celebrations of the Jubilee-Olympics period in May 2012 in London.
Gloves have long been associated with refinement. If you were able to protect your fingers from getting dirty, it meant that you had the luxury of not working with your hands (although medieval knights, as well as falconers, wore protective metal or leather gloves as well). Queen Elizabeth I popularized lavishly decorated gloves, and the tradition is still carried on today by her namesake Queen Elizabeth II, England’s reigning monarch.