Sheepskin gloves

 What is a slink skin lambskin?

New Zealand is known for its quality farming and agricultural environment with its unrivalled clean, green image. 

Unfortunately in New Zealand like in other sheep farming countries, during early spring each year, a small number of newly born lambs do not survive.

These casualties of nature are collected and processed in New Zealand to produce one of the world's softest and lightest twin-face leathers known as slink skin.

Slink lambskin is one of the world’s most sought-after leathers.

Sheepskin or lambskin gloves?

The terms sheepskin and lambskin tend to be used interchangeably and sheepskin gloves is how most people refer to our glove products.

This can however lead to confusion as traditional sheepskin, and even lambskin, with their thick leather and dense wool pile are far from ideal for good fitting gloves. Fortunately these slink baby lambskins are perfect for making premium sheepskin gloves due to the slink's strong, lightweight and durable qualities.

All our lambskin gloves are made from twinface baby lambskins. This means the glove outer is the leather side and the inner is the wool side of the same skin. This premium option with no separate lining is ideal for the gloves to be used for driving or other activities that require dexterity.

Four Peaks Gloves

Four Peaks Gloves Ltd are situated in the foothills of the beautiful Four Peaks range near Geraldine in South Canterbury, New Zealand.

They have a dedicated team of local skilled glove makers who work from home. Every pair of their sheepskin gloves is the result of skilful hand sewing by an experienced craftsperson.

Slinkskin tannery

Four Peaks Gloves only use the  finest, softest and most luxurious slink lambskins in the world!

Tight control over quality

Four Peaks Gloves are located just a couple of hours' drive from the Nichols tannery in Christchurch. This allows them to visit the tannery in person to purchase their baby lambskin slinks. From the premium grade skins, they carefully hand select only the absolute best, most suitable skins. Most gloves are made from a single pelt to ensure a good match.

Premium slink skins fetch a high price and are used by leading fashion houses to make garments as well as gloves. To allow the purchase of such premium grade skins, each pelt needs to be fully utilised to make it cost-effect. Therefore Four Peaks Gloves' sister company uses the off-cuts from making the gloves in the manufacture of small items like baby booties.

Best of the best gloves

Four Peaks Gloves offer two grades of sheepskin gloves, we purchase the higher export quality grade - the very best of the best. You may therefore find these gloves available slightly cheaper elsewhere but may have failed to meet the grade.

Suede and nappa finishes

Only our Four Peaks Gloves range is available in both suede and nappa finishes. The suede finish is available in both the Black and Tan colors, and features a thin wool pile consisting of tiny curls.

The suede gloves' resistance to water and staining can be greatly improved with our sheepskin repellent protection spray.

The nappa option, available in just Black color, offers much greater resistance to staining due to its semi-gloss leather finish. Its wool has been through an ironing process and has a straight, fur-like feel to it.

 

How are the sheepskin gloves made?

To ensure accurate sizing the skins are carefully cut using dies (one set for each size) and a hydraulic press, just one piece at a time. The pieces are then sent out to skilled glove makers locally who hand-sew each pair of gloves.

Special gloving needles are used which are strong, sharp and 3-sided. These minimise the size of the holes made for the tapestry stitch type of stitching. This, along with the heavy gloving weight thread, ensures strong, durable seams.