Elsa Hosk’s leather gloves
A glove is the only accessory that has to fit properly to look like anything at all. There is no styling around a bad one.
Wearing: In Paris and London — Leather gloves, worn as an outfit component rather than for warmth
Leather gloves have become a fixture on people in Paris and London, and Elsa Hosk is the name that keeps coming up as the person who does it best. The revival is not about cold. Gloves are being worn as a deliberate component, often with a coat that would not need them, which puts them in the same territory as a scarf worn indoors.
What makes gloves unusual among accessories is that they are the least forgiving thing you can buy. A bag that is slightly the wrong size is still a bag. A glove that is slightly the wrong size is visibly wrong: loose leather wrinkles across the back of the hand and reads as borrowed, and tight leather stops your fingers reaching the seams and reads as strain. There is no middle ground and no styling around it.
So the specification that matters is glove size, which is a real measurement almost nobody knows: the circumference of your dominant palm in inches at the widest point, excluding the thumb. That number is your size. It is worth taking two minutes with a tape measure before ordering anything.
On material, unlined lambskin is the one that looks like the photographs — thin enough to show the shape of the hand — and is correspondingly useless below about 5°C. Cashmere-lined is warm and always looks slightly bulkier. You are choosing which of those two things you actually want.
What transfers
Measure your palm circumference in inches before buying gloves — that number is your glove size, and no other accessory punishes a wrong size so visibly. Then decide honestly between unlined lambskin, which looks the way gloves look in photographs and is not warm, and a lined glove, which is warm and will never look as sleek.
Sources
- Who What Wear — People in Paris and London Keep Wearing Leather Gloves (read Aug 17, 2026)
- Who What Wear — 5 French-Girl 2026 Accessory Trends That Will Freshen Up Basic Outfits (read Aug 17, 2026)
