Cute Young Blonde Girl Wearing White Hold-ups And Evening Gloves With A Flower In The Studio

The opera glove has enjoyed varying popularity in the decades since World War I, being most prevalent as a fashion accessory in the 1940s through the early 1960s (long gloves were an important accessory of Christian Dior's "New Look" designs), but continues to this day to be popular with women who want to add a particularly elegant touch to their formal outfits, and have enjoyed minor revivals in fashion design on several occasions in recent years (they were very prominent, for example, in haute couture collections for the fall/winter 2007 season). Opera gloves continue to be popular accessories for bridal, prom, and debutante gowns and at very formal ballroom dances (to this day, for example, it is mandatory for female participants at the Vienna Opera Ball to wear white opera gloves) and are often worn by entertainers such as can-can dancers and burlesque performers (particularly to perform a gown-and-glove dance). In popular culture, probably the two best-known images incorporating opera gloves are those of Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" (1946) and Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). (Actress Audrey Hepburn was also known for glove-wearing on- and off-screen, but the style of glove she popularized is a type of coat-sleeve-length or three-quarters-length glove, rather than true opera-length.)
Mousquetaire
The best-known type of opera glove, the mousquetaire, is given this name due to the wrist-level opening (most commonly three inches long) which is closed by three (usually) buttons or snap closures, most frequently made of pearl or some lookalike material. The mousquetaire is originally derived from the gauntlets worn by French musketeers of the 16th and 17th centuries, although, tongue-in-cheek, according to Ambrose Bierce in The Devil's Dictionary, 1911: