Lovable Glovables

Jenny, one of the contributors to this blog - who is yet to contribute (!!!) - is back from Tokyo for a quick visit. Japan is home to the quirky, and Jenny didn't disappoint when she brought back these crazy gloves as a gift:
Aren't they fantastic?! They're so soft and they feel amazing on - they don't have that strange "flock" lining which I have never, never, never understood. Having washed a lot of dishes and scrubbed a lot of stoves in my time, I know a good glove when I put it on, and these gloves are awesome!

These gloves are actually designed by Lindy Kummings, who started up the Glovables range in 2002. Lindy had spent most of her career in the property industry until she was struck down with a rare form of bone cancer in 1994. As a result of the cancer she lost parts of her hip and pelvis, leaving one leg shorter than the other. Not only that, she was told that there was a good chance she wouldn't survive the cancer. Bam! See you later cancer - she beat the illness, survived the chemo and the life-threatening operations. Putting her property career on hold, she started to think about what was important to her: and that was cooking and cleaning. Ok, no that's not true. She just decided to make cooking and cleaning more fun, so out came her designs! Check out the aprons! Adorable!!

Can someone explan the "half-apron" to me? Don't you spill most things on your chest? Like the pot bubbles and spits at your white business shirt? What purpose does the half apron serve?

Regardless of functionality - these things are cute!

You know you've struck on to a great product when the Chinese start ripping off your designs. There are apparently lots of copies of Glovables floating around. Don't be fooled! Buy the original, because Glovables has now been rolled into Grandway Honduras, a non-profit organisation which provides economic opportunities to children and women in Latin America. One of the initiatives of Grandway is a sewing factory in (you guessed it) Honduras. From the website, I gather these people are not being exploited, and that work and pay conditions are better than the countless sweatshops you'll find in Latin America. I hope so because they make some damn fine gloves there - they deserve to be rewarded!

And what of Lindy? In 2004 she was diagnosed with breast cancer - which she survived - but she rolled Glovables into Grandway Honduras so she could concentrate on design rather than design and running a business. You go girlfriend!