Luvaria Ulisses

"Bespoke Gloves Heaven This small little wonder of a shop is located at 87 Rua do Carmo, the most fashionable street in Lisbon after the superseding Rua Garret. It is the last shop in the whole of Portugal, which is exclusively dedicated to the bespoke hand manufacture of leather gloves. The cream of the Lisbon society has been its avid clientele since 1925, procuring high quality leather tailor made gloves for those days when the sunshine is not enough to warm the hands. At about 50€ per pair, depending on the model and leather, you do not have to go to Italy to get a product of this tremendous quality. A woman from Chicago once told me that she had visited Lisbon ten years ago, where she had the opportunity to purchase a single pair. She was so impressed and the gloves had left such a good memory that she was here to get three or four more pairs in case she did not have the opportunity to come back to Lisbon for another ten years."

"Glove-making may largely be a lost art, but it continues to flourish at Luvaria Ulisses, a Chiado institution. Since city council executive-turned entrepreneur Joaquim Rodrigues Simões opened the shop in 1925, it’s been Lisbon's go-to destination for gloves crafted from high-quality leather. Beyond the original neoclassical façade, the extremely tiny, wood-dominated space is just as charming. Decor from the era remains intact, reinforcing the shop’s loyalty to a decades-long manufacturing process." - Alia Akkam