We hope this will become a favourite page, perhaps especially with nonspecialists who still love exploring costume and fashion past and present: anything about clothing/apparel, including textiles, accessories—the works.
And that happens to rhyme with quirks, which I included in the name of this page to indicate that any and all details and aspects of a wardrobe are part of its subject matter.
The idea originated in a conversation with one of our earlier CSO Chairs, Martha Mann Southgate, a renowned set/costume designer for theatre and film. Although she had in mind the attractions of presentation of a subject in some depth, I am starting with items among the smallest, but intriguing and important—quirks themselves as parts of a glove.
They are the tiny triangular pieces inserted at the base of fingers and the thumbs of well-made leather gloves to give better fit and flexibility—see sketches below. These are part of a page on Gloves from a publication of mine (Mary Humphries) now out of print, Apparel Anatomy.
Further to the origin and use of the word “quirk,” I checked in dictionaries and on the internet for this use of the name for the smallest parts of a glove. In a quick browse through the internet, I found the meaning for “quirk” as a glove part in one place only, on the fascinating website of The Word Detective, Evan Morris: www.word-detective.com/03000.html
He puts it as a derivative of its various other meanings. Earlier use, he says, was as a “verbal trick”(around 1565), or “an evasion,” as Shakespeare has it in Much Ado About Nothing (1699); in Twelfth Night (1601) it is “a peculiarity of behaviour.” The connection with “sudden turns, including flourishes in drawing,” is mentioned, and the use for glove parts is set later, from a mention in 1688. (I want to ask the Word Detective how he knows this, since it seems to me that gloves were made at as early a date as those recorded for any of those other applications.) After finding and enjoying this website, I took a subscription to The Word Detective’s Newsletter, although one can ride along for free.
Merriam Webster’s dictionary gave also “an abrupt twist or curve”; “a peculiar trait”; “a groove separating a bead or other molding from adjoining parts.” Quirk is similarly defined by the OED (with the spelling “moulding”). Neither of these standards mentions gloves. I am sure some CSO members have costume or accessory dictionaries that do, but I do not have one at hand.
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