How to measure your hand for leather gloves

Take the measurement first

Put a soft tape around your dominant hand at the widest part of the palm, just below the knuckles, with the thumb held out of the way and the hand relaxed. Close the tape until it touches without pressing. Read the number in inches. That figure is hand circumference, and it is what most Fioretto glove listings size by.

Use the dominant hand. It is usually a tenth to two tenths of an inch larger than the other, and a glove that fits the larger hand will fit the smaller one. The reverse does not hold.

Why the charts here do not agree

We pulled the sizing table off every glove listing in this catalog. 10 distinct tables came back off 32 pages. 7 of them measure circumference, 3 measure hand width, and even inside the circumference group the bands move: one model starts small at 7 inches, another starts small at 8.3. That gap of 1.3 inches is wider than three whole bands on the tightest of these charts, and every one of those models calls the result S.

The practical consequence: a size letter that fitted one Fioretto pair is not a promise about the next one. Read the chart on the page you are buying from. Every product page in this catalog reproduces the table from its own listing, and the calculator on that page runs off that table rather than a generic one.

Circumference and width are not interchangeable

A width chart measures straight across the flat palm, one edge to the other. A circumference chart goes all the way around. The two numbers differ by roughly an inch and a half on the same hand, so applying a width measurement to a circumference chart puts you two sizes too small. The chart heading on each product page states which one it uses.

What to do when you land on a boundary

• Lined winter gloves. Take the larger size. A wool or cashmere lining fills the glove, and a tight lined glove gets cold because the air layer disappears.
• Unlined driving gloves. Take the smaller size. Thin sheepskin gives about a tenth of an inch across the palm in the first few weeks and a loose driving glove defeats the point.
• Fingerless and half-finger. Smaller. There is no finger length to run out of, and these are meant to sit close.
• Buying as a gift. Larger, and check the return terms on the listing before you order.

Finger length is the other half

Circumference sets the glove size, but two hands with the same palm measurement can have very different fingers. If your fingers are long for your palm, the fingertips of a correctly sized glove will feel tight before the palm does. There is no chart for this in the range, so read the listing reviews on that specific model, where long-finger complaints show up consistently when they exist.