Peccary Gloves Buying Guide

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Learn all about our latest addition to our Glove line, the HydroPeccary™ leather gloves from Fort Belvedere.

What Is Peccary?

Peccary is a skin derived from a wild animal that some say is part of the pig family. It’s actually very similar to a javelina or a capybara and highest-quality skins come from Peru. Because peccary leather is derived from a wild animal, it is subject to the Cites convention and because of that, you can rest assured that everything is harvested sustainably.

Unlike regular kidskin or a lamb Nappa leather, peccary leather has three little prongs that are very characteristic and you won’t find them in any other leather. Some people can confuse it with hog skin or pig skin but peccary is a lot more expensive and it’s also much softer and at the same time, extremely durable. Because of that, it’s considered to be the very best glove leather that you can find on the market today.

Sven Raphael Schneider wearing gray hydropeccary gloves from Fort Belvedere
Sven Raphael Schneider wearing gray HydroPeccary™ gloves from Fort Belvedere

What Makes Fort Belvedere Peccary Gloves Special?

Because Fort Belvedere peccary gloves can last you for decades, we want to make sure to add a certain amount of stain resistance without sacrificing on the patina development. Apart from the soft supple feel, peccary develops a nice patina over time and the leather gets softer and it looks better. In general, this is a hallmark of quality goods because as you wear them, they get better and more beautiful versus cheaper items that just deteriorate and look worse with every time you wear them.

In the past, we acquire quality peccary rawhides in Peru and have been tanned and dyed there to keep the logistics chain simple and make sure that we get a quality product. We’re never just happy with the status quo but we always try to get better and because of that, we found a small family company that has over a hundred years of experience in leather tanning in Germany and now we have all of our peccary skins dyed and tanned there. It’s more expensive but we believe that the color consistency and the softness are even increased.

So the quality of peccary leather we have today is even better than what we had before. In fact, you will not find a better peccary leather in the world today than the one offered from Fort Belvedere. Now peccary leather is not just the best leather you can buy but also the most expensive one. At the same time, we didn’t just want to have the same high-quality leather everyone else has and so we try to come up with an innovative concept to make the leather even better.

Chamois Yellow Peccary Mens Dress Gloves Hydropeccary handsewn with cashmere lining by Fort Belvedere
Chamois Yellow Peccary Mens Dress Gloves HydroPeccary™ handsewn with cashmere lining by Fort Belvedere

What is HydroPeccary™?

During that process, we came up with the HydroPeccary™. So what is it? Basically, it is a peccary leather skin of the highest grade from Peru, tanned in Germany, however, we are the first company in the world to add an agent to the leather that makes it water resistant. Basically, we wanted a leather that was more functional in everyday life without sacrificing the marshmallow soft subtleness as well as the characteristic of the natural peccary leather.

So Fort Belvedere HydroPeccary™ leather is the softest glove leather you can find in the world today, at the same time, it is also water resistant and stain resistant. If you put water on an untreated piece of leather it absorbs it and leaves water stains. In that case, you’d have to wet the entire glove, let it dry in order to prevent any stains. On the other hand, with the hydro peccary leather, you can pour water over it and the leather doesn’t absorb it and it dries right off. So no matter if you have a runny nose, or if you have to scratch the ice from your car, or if you walk through the rain, your peccary gloves won’t get water stains and they’ll keep you warm and dry.

Are Fort Belvedere HydroPeccary™ Gloves Waterproof?

Well no, they’re not. They’re not quite like a rubber glove because they have seams that are made by hand. Because of that, water can penetrate that, but in general, for everyday activities, it’s totally fine and we like to call it water resistant. If you want waterproof gloves you probably have to upgrade to ski gloves, however, these are men’s dress gloves designed for cities and everyday wear, not for Antarctic exhibitions.

Quality Hallmarks Of Fort Belvedere HydroPeccary™ Gloves

Hand Cut By Master Cutters

Fort Belvedere gloves are hand cut by master cutters in Hungary with over 30 years of glove cutting experience. The era of cutting is a dying trade and you’ll probably find less than a hundred people in the world who really know that craft.

Now it may sound easy to just cut a glove shape from a piece of leather, however, because peccary is a wild animal, it has lots of scars and holes and a skilled cutter has to cut around them to get the maximum yield for every skin. At the same time, all glove leathers have to be very stretchy and while peccary is very stretchy, the stretch isn’t always the same in every direction. Those are also things that cutter has to consider when it cuts the glove so we guarantee a perfect fit when you wear the glove.

Made From One Piece Of Leather

In the past, we’d cut our peccary gloves with an outside seam on the index finger. Now, we have reduced that seam which means your glove is made from one piece of leather, that means you can only use the very highest quality skins because lower quality skins will have more imperfections.

Hand Sewn In Hungary

Once the Fort Belvedere HydroPeccary™ gloves are cut, they are then hand sewn in Hungary by very skilled sewers who have specialized in glove making for over a century. It takes several hours to finally hand Stitch a pair of Fort Belvedere hydro peccary gloves but our artisans take great pride in it and if you really want to see what steps go into the making of our gloves, please check out the video below.

Distinct Hand-Stitched Points
Distinct Hand-Stitched Points

Distinct Hand-Stitched Points

The fourth hallmark of a Fort Belvedere HydroPeccary™ gloves are the hand-stitched points which are the three lines you see on the back of the hand or the back of the glove. The points don’t serve a functional purpose and they’re merely decorative because of that, we wanted to keep it in line with the hand stitching. While most gloves rely on machine sewing, we went all out and added decorative hand stitching that’s very nice and complements the look of the glove.

Fort Belvedere's signature green quirks handsewn
Fort Belvedere’s signature green quirks handsewn

Signature Quirks

The fifth thing that makes our gloves special are the quirks. By that, I mean the little triangles in between your fingers that add an extra room of movement for your hand without feeling constricted at any point in time. It may seem like a little detail but it requires quite a bit of skill to add those in and it also adds time to the production process. At Fort Belvedere, we make them in our signature green color so you can always recognize a glove even if you don’t take it off.

Extra Soft Lining

The sixth hallmark of our gloves is the lining. In the past, we used alpaca linings for our peccary gloves because alpaca is actually warmer than cashmere, at the same time, it is not as soft. Because peccary leather itself is very soft, we wanted to make sure to get the softest lining we can that is likewise warm and so we chose Italian finished cashmere.

For the color, we decided to go with an oatmeal brown simply because it doesn’t show dirt very easily and so they always look clean and never dirty.

Fort Belvedere gloves contrasting elements

Contrasting Elements

The seventh thing that makes Fort Belvedere gloves different is the contrasting elements at the piping, at the buttons, and the quirks, and the thread. We use the dark Fort Belvedere signature green color and it adds a visual contrast which is quite interesting, handsome, and at the same time, recognizable.

Button closure gives off a classic vibe
The Button closure gives off a classic vibe

Button Closure

Last but not least, Fort Belvedere gloves feature a button closure which has a distinct 1920s and 30s style. The idea is to create something that helps you keep your hands warm and at the same time, look elegant. Again, it’s a little detail that takes more time and it’s more expensive to produce but we believe is worth it and it’s something you will not find in other gloves.

Get your Fort Belvedere gloves!

CONCLUSION

Now that you know what makes our peccary gloves extra special, we hope you have a deeper understanding of why high-end leather gloves are considered a truly worthy investment.

Reader Comments

  1. If I might borrow a word word from Sven’s first language, I submit the word, handshuh, German for glove, is instructive re: this posting. Just as no well dressed Man would skimp on his shoes’ quality, by purchasing on the cheap, neither should he opt for cheaper price at the expense of his gloves’ (hand shoes) quality. Without question, invest in finely made gloves.

    1. Well said William! I am sure it was just a spelling error, but the word is Handschuh which literally means hand shoe ;)

      1. Spelling error it was. I should know better having spent a year in country. Thanks. :-)

  2. “Gregory Peccory”…Frank Zappa…VERY informative video! The yellow color would be my 1st choice. The gloves appear to be “best of class!” The overcoats were top tier choices too! One day I’ll own a pair!…Thank you. I learned a lot from it! Cheers!

  3. How warm are these gloves? The article says they aren’t as warm as the normal line but are they still warm enough for a cold winter climate? How warm are the other lined gloves?
    I think you’re based in Minnesota so you have cold winters; would these (or other Fort Belvedere gloves) be warm enough for all winter? Thanks!

    1. They are warm dress gloves, and suited for winter. The emphasis is on Dress gloves. They are warmer than dress gloves I had from other brands but they are still not as warm as skiing gloves.

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