Agnelle, Glove Maker Since 1937

Agnelle

A craft that runs in the family! For four generations in Saint-Junien in the Haute-Vienne region, the tradition of making gloves has been passed from generation to generation at Ganterie Agnelle. It’s no wonder that today Ganterie Agnelle is a real benchmark of tradition, luxury and exception, distributed in the best shops and department stores in the world. For years, Agnelle has also been quietly working with couturiers and designers to realize their most outlandish creations. But it’s also a company turned toward tomorrow, under the direction of Sophie Grégoire. Since 1986, this great-granddaughter of the founder has campaigned on all fronts to make the glove a peerless fashion accessory.

The result: a family success story where tradition and creation meet.

A story of women

Saint-Junien is one of the last two French cradles of glove making. From the 11th century, this craft industry developed here primarily due to the profusion of pastureland and running water in the area, elements that favor the raising of goats and sheep and, by extension, the transforming of their skins into leather. At the start of the last century the little town was home to a number of taweries and tanneries working side by side.

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In 1937 they were joined by that of Sophie Grégoire’s great-grandfather. A glove maker coming to the end of his career, he set this workshop up for his son. But two years later the Second World War erupted and soon snapped up the young craftsman. His wife took over the business and maintained it until 1965 when she was succeeded by her daughter Josy Le Royer. Dynamic and driven, she understood that the glove’s future was not entirely assured. In daily life in the sixties private cars and public transport played a major part. This accessory didn’t find it had an indispensable role to play in the ready-to-wear trend that had arrived from the US. As a result, the French glove making industry went into decline, and a number of small ateliers in Saint-Junien had already shut up shop. Deciding to take the glove making of her forebears in hand, Josy Le Royer headed to Paris to show her new styles to the department store buyers. In the ensuing madness she made a detour to Maison Christian Dior and managed to convince the managers to give her the contract to produce its gloves. This partnership with the illustrious house located at 30 Avenue Montaigne turned into a production license for the couture and ready-to-wear lines. This mark of trust opened the door to the design studios of many other couturiers and big fashion houses, from Emanuel Ungaro and Gianfranco Ferré to Hanae Mori, Lanvin, Louis Féraud and Yves Saint Laurent.

From couture to ready-to-wear: gloves on the catwalks

Agnelle works hand in hand with the creators of dreams. Whether looking for a very long style, an unusual color, or minute details, the workers in Saint-Junien perform miracles to bring the crazy ideas from Paris to life. The 1970s saw the emergence of young and new ready-to-wear designers termed, in French, créateurs. These unknowns had names like Jean Paul Gaultier, Claude Montana and Azzedine Alaïa.

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Gants Agnelle pour Jean-Paul Gautier (3 modèles)

Recognizing their huge talent, Josy Le Royer willingly offered to help them and to realize the wild ideas they had of accessorizing the hand with the best skins. This increasingly frequent contact with those who who were creating new fashion trends and directions every season helped stimulate the creativity of the Agnelle collections. The glove is recognized as a beautiful accessory, among the most refined and chic in daily life. But wouldn’t it be more desirable if it explored more aesthetic territory? Thus, with each season, the house’s offerings are diversified and go that extra step.

Like mother, like daughter

Blood is thicker than water, and Sophie Grégoire adopted the same stance on creativity, surprise and style when she came to work alongside her mother in the middle of the 1980s. This era was even more intensive as the ranks of designers multiplied. One by one they fell in love with gloves. The founder’s great-granddaughter vowed she would never answer “impossible” to their ideas to revolutionize the glove.

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In the Agnelle ateliers, the artisans make gloves that were designed as punched, ripped, studded, over-dyed or slashed. Nothing is the impossible because everything is made possible through the in-house know-how – from preparing the leather with talc, to shaping the finished model on a ‘hot hand’ mold, not forgetting the cutting tools, and the seams and saddle stitches sewn by hand – which adapts to the needs of today in order to still be around tomorrow. This is because there are fewer and fewer local practitioners upholding this industry. In 1999, the house of Agnelle was bought by an American glove industry leader. Two years later, Sophie Grégoire took back 100% control thanks to private financial partners, by proposing a buy-back offer based on the safeguarding and redeployment of a beautiful French savoir-faire.

In 2006, Ganterie Agnelle was awarded the distinction Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant: “The Entreprises du Patrimoine Vivant label is a brand given by the Minister of Economy, Industry and Employment, created to spotlight French businesses fusing artisan know-how and industrial excellence.”

Agnelle today

Some seventy years after its creation, Agnelle is one of the best-known French glove brands. The Agnelle collections are distributed through five hundred doors in France, including department stores Le Bon Marché and Galeries Lafayette, in Paris and nationwide. Outside France, roughly two hundred sales points are divided between fifteen countries.

In parallel, the collaborations with luxury brands, couture houses and talented designers continue to prosper. From Jean Paul Gaultier to John Galliano, via Christian Dior, Lanvin, Francesco Smalto, Celine, Nina Ricci, Guy Laroche, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Kenzo, Marithé&François Girbaud, Marc Jacobs, Agnès b, Bensimon, Isabel Marant, Roger Vivier, Avril Gau, Barbara Bui: each turns to the talents of the Agnelle glove makers to create gloves that, on a catwalk, in an advert, or in a magazine editorial, will be an outfit’s key accessories.