The young generation prefers to face life with their gloves off

I studied with interest the recent photo of Prince William and Prince Harry attending a military occasion in mufti. For officers in the Foot Guards and the Household Cavalry, the sartorial drill is, or used to be, strict. Here is my report on the two young men. Bowlers: all right but nothing spectacular. Harry’s better than William’s. Indeed, the latter’s, worn a bit fore and after, might have inspired his great-great-grandfather’s scathing comment: ‘Hello, William, goin’ rattin’?’ Dark suits: oh dear, and no weskits so far as I can see. Who’s your tailor, William? Oh yes? Change him. Tightly rolled umbrellas: just passable. Shoes: well, it’s a democratic age. But — no gloves. No gloves? I can hardly believe my eyes.

When I was a young man, nearly 60 years ago, a smart pair of tight brown leather gloves was as much a part of an officer’s uniform as his Sam Browne — and always worn or carried with civvies too. If you went to see the CO without them, you’d be rebuked, ‘Come back properly dressed!’ In the anterooms of an officers’ mess, the big table would be covered with pairs of gloves each neatly placed in their owner’s service hat. By what authority, and when, was this iron rule scrapped? Do I detect the sacri-legious hand of New Labour? Certainly, I never remember Tony Blair wearing gloves (or a tie, either, if the choice was left to him). I wore these kind of leather gloves for all remotely formal outdoor occasions from my last year at school, at Oxford and, of course, throughout my army service.

What I don’t recall is the decision to abandon them. Such garments were worn or carried not for warmth — for that you had ‘woollies’ or mittens — but for reasons of fashion.