For those who do not know what has made Grenoble famous throughout the world, the Dauphinois museum has decided to take up the gauntlet with its new event exhibition called “Fait main”. Because it is indeed the glove-making sector that has long sustained the capital of the Alps. During this golden age of gloves, from 1830 to the end of the Second World War, Grenoble had hundreds of glove workshops. One in two families worked in the glove sector.
Master glover Xavier Jouvin is behind this tremendous development. In 1838, he developed “the iron hand”, a system for mechanically cutting leather (and no longer with scissors) up to six gloves at a time. This will promote the industrial development of glove making. The luxury goatskin gloves “made in Grenoble” will then invade the planet. In the big capitals, in New York, London or Paris, the elegant rush to the shops of the Grenoble glove houses. Grenoble gloves are sold as far away as Australia.
It is this era that brings to life the magnificent exhibition of the Dauphinois museum visible until March 2023. We discover the secrets of the manufacture of the glove, its evolution. The boutique of a luxury glove store has been reconstructed. We learn that the Empress Eugénie, visiting Grenoble in 1860 with her husband Napoleon III, received during a ceremony at the prefecture a superb pair of gloves in pink goatskin, beaded and embroidered with ears of wheat, including one faithful reproduction is exhibited.
On May 14, Jean Strazzeri, the last master glovemaker from Grenoble, will demonstrate his know-how at the Dauphinois museum. Perhaps the opportunity to arouse vocations among the youngest, in order to revive the glove of Grenoble!
“Handmade” exhibition at dauphinois museum, 30, rue Maurice-Gignoux in Grenoble, until March 27, 2023. Free entry. Every day except Tuesday. From 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., 7 p.m. on weekends.
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