Where Can I Find a Nice Pair of Warm Leather Gloves?

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Yesterday morning was pretty cold in New York City, and it had me thinking that I should look into getting a pair of reasonably priced (?) leather gloves. I’m ambivalent about spending too much because it’s so easy to lose them, but for the right pair, I’d consider it. —Katie

This is a question we’ve been getting a lot lately, and my own personal answer is always the same: Hestra. Even when we began brainstorming which question to answer for this week’s column, we internally acknowledged that if we went with “the glove one,” my answer would just be “Hestra.”

What I like the most about the brand is that gloves are literally the only thing it does, and it’s been making them since the 1930s (!). That’s over 80 years of glove-making. I really like the Megan style, which is a leather glove with a long wool lining — for me, the thing that really makes or breaks whether my arms feel cold in the winter is whether my coat is lined with wool or another thick, knit fabric at the wrists. So if yours isn’t, I’d definitely suggest getting a pair of gloves that are.

Hestra gloves aren’t cheap, though! The ones I just mentioned are $110, so you really need to be committed to not losing them. That being said, if you manage not to, you really will have these forever — they’re so well-made, and the fact that they’re all pretty plain and not weirdly trendy means they’re not going to look dated in a few years (even if that oversized faux-fur leopard-print coat you bought from Topshop does).

Ugg also makes really nice gloves at around the same price point, and almost all of the leather pairs are touch-screen friendly. You can’t really go wrong with the brand’s Classic style, which are leather on the outside and lined with wool.

You know who else makes great gloves? Coach. The Iconic Leather Glove is warm (it’s lined with cashmere), and the leather on the outside is so crazy soft. They’re expensive too ($125), but again, if you just try really hard not to lose them, I guarantee you’ll be able to keep them for a long, long time. A friend of mine gave me a pair about 10 years ago that I still have to this day, and until I realized that I didn’t need to be so precious about them, I carried them around in the gift box he had given them to me in.

Because that’s the thing a lot of people often forget about gloves — you can have them cleaned! They’re a leather good, just like your shoes and your bags. So if you spill coffee on them or accidentally put your hand on something gross on the subway, don’t freak out. Just take them to a leather cleaner and they’ll spruce them right up.

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