Most guides to glove leather are written by people who have never cut a hide. This one is written in a workshop where all five of these leathers are cut and sewn every week, so it will tell you plainly which is best at what — including where the expensive option is not the right one.
Quick comparison
| Leather | Softness | Durability | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deerskin | High | Very high | Driving and everyday wear |
| Lambskin / nappa | Very high | Moderate | Formal wear and a slim line |
| Peccary | Highest | High | The finest glove you can own |
| Carpincho | High | High | Something distinctive |
| Shearling | Moderate | High | Serious cold |
Deerskin — the practical choice
Deerskin is the best all-round glove leather, and it is what we would recommend to most people buying their first proper pair. It is soft, naturally breathable, and it outlasts almost everything else.
Ours comes from Finland, where the cold climate produces a denser, finer-grained hide. The particular quality of deerskin is that it combines softness with real toughness — most leathers trade one for the other. It moulds to your hand quickly and then holds that shape for years.
Choose deerskin if: you want gloves you will actually wear every day, you drive regularly, or you want one pair to do most jobs. See deerskin driving gloves.
Lambskin and nappa — the elegant choice
Lambskin is the smoothest and slimmest glove leather, and the right one for formal wear. Nappa is lambskin finished to a particularly soft, fine surface. Ours comes from Italy.
Where deerskin has a visible grain and a little body, lambskin is sleek and close to the hand. It photographs beautifully and it sits cleanly under a coat cuff. The trade-off is honest: it is thinner than deerskin and will not take the same years of hard daily use.
Choose lambskin if: you want a slim, refined line, you are dressing formally, or you want the leather to disappear against the hand rather than announce itself.
Peccary — the connoisseur's choice
Peccary is the rarest and softest leather in fine glove-making. It comes from a wild mammal of the family Tayassuidae — not a pig or a boar, despite how often it is described that way. Ours comes from Peru.
Two things set it apart. First, the grain: hair follicles grow in groups of three, leaving a pitted pattern that no other leather has and no embossing imitates. Second, it is soft immediately, with no breaking-in period, and it stays supple in cold weather when other leathers stiffen.
It is expensive because the animals are wild, the hides are small, and our finest peccary models are hand-sewn at up to eight hours per pair. We have written a full explainer on peccary leather if you want the detail.
Choose peccary if: you want the best glove available and you will appreciate the difference. If you mainly want warmth, your money goes further elsewhere. See peccary driving gloves and peccary winter gloves.
Carpincho — the distinctive choice
Carpincho comes from the capybara and has a fine dotted grain that no other glove leather shares. It is strong, it stays supple in the cold, and it looks like nothing else.
People who buy carpincho tend to buy it deliberately — they have owned black nappa and want something with more character. It is a quieter distinctiveness than peccary: the texture reads at close range rather than across a room.
Choose carpincho if: you want a glove that is recognisably not the standard thing, without being loud about it.
Shearling — the warm choice
Shearling is the warmest glove we make. It is a single skin with the wool left on: leather on the outside, wool against your hand. There is no separate lining because the wool is part of the same hide.
It is bulkier than the others, which is the trade-off. You will not want it at the wheel. For standing at a bus stop in January, nothing else comes close.
Choose shearling if: warmth is the priority and you are not trying to do anything precise with your hands.
What about the lining?
The lining changes a winter glove as much as the outer leather does.
- Unlined — the most feel and the slimmest fit. Right for driving gloves and mild weather.
- Silk — a light lining that adds a little warmth and lets the glove slide on easily. Common in longer and dressier gloves.
- Cashmere — warm without bulk. The best balance for a winter glove you still want to drive in.
- Rabbit fur — the warmest lining we use, and it stays soft rather than matting down over a season.
So which should you buy?
- Driving, most of the year — unlined deerskin.
- Driving in winter — deerskin or peccary with a cashmere lining. Slim enough to keep feel at the wheel.
- Formal and evening wear — lambskin or nappa, silk lined.
- Everyday winter wear — lambskin or deerskin with rabbit fur.
- Serious cold — shearling.
- A glove to keep for a very long time — peccary.
Our leather guide covers each of these in more depth.
Or have it made
Every combination above can be made to your own measurements. There are no fixed limits on size, colour, leather, lining or stitching — if you want peccary with a rabbit fur lining and contrast stitching in a colour of your choosing, that is a normal order for us. A bespoke pair takes up to five days to make, so 8–12 days in total within the EU.
Our family has made gloves since 1925, and the workshop in Târgu Mureș, Transylvania now employs over thirty people. See our bespoke service, check your size on the sizing chart, or write to info@nmgloves.com and ask us which leather suits what you have in mind.