News / UNSCENT Glove Lovers @ AVERY Excelsior Milan

Intertrade Group announces UNSCENT Glove Lovers, to be held at AVERY PERFUME GALLERY in Excelsior Milano, under its cultural activity label. UNSCENT as cultural platform of the Group create unique events celebrating the cultural aspects of Art Perfumery.

The UNSCENT Glove Lovers exhibit is scheduled to run during the Esxence Milano, beginning March 23, and will run until the end of March, 2017, connecting for the first time ever, perfumery and gloves. The exhibit will travel afterwards to other international destinations to be announced later in the year.

Celso Fadelli, Intertrade Group President and Fragrance Curator, noted “We are very pleased to select the talented Thomasine Barnekow to work with us on this UNSCENT. Thomasine’s incredible art glove designs and impressive creativity has already wowed clients, artists and museums around the world. We are particularly excited about this special occasion to take a closer look at one of history’s most interesting chapters, a chapter where fine perfumery met leather glove production.”

Thomasine Barnekow added, “I am thrilled to collaborate with UNSCENT on the fascinating relationship between luxury gloves and haute parfumerie. Working with Fadelli’s contagious passion for perfumery, for history and for design aesthetics, fits perfectly with the ideals I strive for in my glove design and production.”

The UNSCENT Glove Lovers will feature an exclusive selection of Thomasine’s spectacular gloves alongside AVERY PERFUME GALLERY’s showcase of high-end artistic perfumes, celebrating the little known relationship between the worlds of gloves and fragrances, a “love story” which began in the 1500s.

Fadelli explains, “In the Middle Ages, Grasse, France, the world’s uncontested capital of perfume since the eighteenth century, specialised in leather tanning. However, the leather smelled badly, so Gallimard, a Grasse tanner, came up with the idea of scented leather gloves and offered a pair to Catherine de Medici, who was enthralled with his gift. The concept then spread through the Royal Court and high society, and the seventeenth century became the pinnacle for glovers’ perfumers’.” Fadelli adds, “In 1656, Maîtres Parfumeurs et Gantiers, the guild of glove and perfume-makers was established, representing one of the first important perfume trade associations and surely part of the reason why scented gloves then became all the rage. Scented gloves continued their popularity under Louis XIV and Louis XV as the glove makers discovered ways to infuse leather with different scents during the tanning process.”

UNSCENT Glove Lovers combines AVERY PERFUME GALLERY’s remarkable artistic fragrance selection with Thomasine’s untraditional gloves in memory of the successful industrial seventeenth century partnership and explores modern ideas formed from worlds of fashion, accessories and perfumery.

Thomasine’s collection of accessories for the hand is full of surprises — combinations of material, twists and fastenings that show off her technical understanding and attention to fine craftsmanship. The exhibition will also evoke Thomasine’s collaborations with designers, photographers and artists who staged and interpreted her gloves through captivating photographs and images.