Accessory designer Paula Rowan’s gloves are worn by celebrities, appear in films and TV series, and are feted in the international fashion press. In the midst of all the fuss, Paula remains cool and focused on her new collection …
When it comes to career mantras, accessory designer Paula Rowan has it sewn up. “There’s this expression, ‘Slowly, slowly catchy monkey’,” Paula says of the old saying [slightly adapted] that extols the virtues of patience. “My career has unfolded very gradually,” she says.
Paula’s version of baby steps have certainly been glamorous ones. Since launching her eponymous brand in 2008, the designer, who grew up in Blackrock, Co Dublin, hasn’t been short on career-defining moments. In 2011, Helen Mirren was the first celebrity to wear a pair of her sumptuous leather gloves on the red carpet. Following that, superstylist (and McQueen muse) Katy England used her gloves in a Tim Walker shoot that landed in Vogue Italia, something Paula recalls as “a pivotal moment”.
Lady Gaga as Patrizia Reggiani in House of Gucci.
There were more celebrity sightings on Kendall Jenner and Madonna, followed by an email from the production team working on the House of Gucci film. “I thought it was spam,” she laughs, recalling the subject line that read ‘House of Gucci x Lady Gaga x Ridley Scott’. She went on to provide 30 pieces to “glove” (Paula uses it as a verb) Lady Gaga for her role as Patrizia Reggiani, the wife of Maurizio Gucci, in the film. To use Irish-designed gloves on a film about the most storied accessory designer in Italy, set in Rome, a city awash with glovemakers, was a big deal. The timing was fortuitous: it was the end of 2020 and fashion was in a pandemic freefall.
Gloved by Paula: (Clockwise from top) Rihanna pictured with A$AP Rocky at the 2024 British Fashion Awards; Dua Lipa on stage in Berlin, 2024; Catherine, Princess of Wales, at a state banquet at Buckingham Palace; Beyoncé at an event in Malibu, April 2024.
For Paula, it seemed like fashion kismet. “I’m this type of person – one of my friends has pinpointed it. She says: ‘You are all or nothing. There’s actually no middle ground with you.’ She’s a psychologist,” she adds. Paula’s living room, with its view of Dublin Bay, is packed full of curios; from vintage glove clips and ashtrays to ceramic seashells, and a painting by Irish artist Mark P Cullen, all clues to an uncompromising eye for detail which has defined her career. In 2006, Paula took over her brother’s store in The Westbury Mall – then it was a franchise for Italian leather goods brand Claudio Fericci – and launched her eponymous label in 2008, the day the Lehman Brothers went bust (a deterrent? Not really, she says.) Earlier this year, she acquired a second unit next door. As Paula saw it, there was a niche for quality gloves with theatricality. “I refer to my gloves as couture for the hands,” she says, with emphasis on couture. Made in Naples, using ethically sourced Ethiopian lambskin with only natural oils and waxes used in the tanning process, the gloves are cut and stitched by hand. A single pair can take up to four months to produce. Prices range from €85 to €4,800.
Among Paula’s loyal clientele, gloves don’t just finish an outfit, they are the outfit.
Why was Paula drawn to designing gloves? “We touch with our hands. We gesture with our hands. We perform with our hands. Think of pianists, surgeons, Katie Taylor in the boxing ring … But nobody was doing anything to celebrate hands,” says Paula. Celebrating is one thing, elevating is another. Her loyal clientele in Ireland and abroad understand that her gloves don’t just finish an outfit, they are the outfit. “I recently had a very cool mother of the bride who, instead of buying a fascinator, chose a special pair of gloves,” she says.
Another adage applies to Paula’s career: do one thing and do it well. Her goal was to become “the Jimmy Choo of gloves”. She welcomes the resurgence in specialist shops over the last few years, something she posits, could be down to the disappearance of department stores globally, and a changing of priorities post-Covid fuelling an interest in artisan makers.
Gloved by Paula: (Clockwise from top)American fencer Miles Chamley-Watson at the 2025 Met Gala; Taylor Swift on stage in Liverpool during her Eras Tour in 2024; Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Morticia Addams in Wednesday; Gwendoline Christie as Principal Larissa Weems in Netflix’s Wednesday.
Production takes place at five separate ateliers in Naples, with frequent visits there and to Milan making Italy a veritable second home for Paula. Italians, she believes, are the best dressers – and their performative sprezzatura makes them ideal glovewearers. “You can nearly understand their conversation by looking at their hands, which is quite amazing,” she says. There is a kind of performance quality to how Paula, in an elegant leather skirt by Celine (via Vestiaire Collective), Khaite top, and Dries Van Noten opera coat, pulls on some of her favourite designs (her catalogue comprises over 250 styles in 50 colours: we barely make a dent). I am cast back to the times of Hitchcock heroines, epic stories, Maria Callas mid-aria. There are funnelled shapes. Shearling, Doctor Zhivago-esque trims, sculptural ruching. There are 16-inch opera gloves that demand to be seen (these have been worn by Beyoncé and Sydney Sweeney; Taylor Swift prefers the short, silk-lined variations). Paula’s favourite flower, the foxglove, inspired the bell shape of the Molly glove, worn by the maximalist Lisa Todd Wexley on season two of Sex and the City sequel series And Just Like That. In Tim Burton’s Wednesday, Joanna Lumley and Catherine Zeta-Jones wear her gloves – tulle and leather in sculptural, peony shapes. If gloves could talk, these ones would speak of extraordinary lives.
Naples is a font of inspiration. “You step off the plane and you’re belted by that smell of heat; the coffee, the tobacco. The city has a kind of volcanic energy,” she says. Her favourite ritual is an espresso taken at the bar, to soak up the ambience. “Once I was dining at this tiny restaurant in a courtyard off a crowded street with ivy trailing old metal gates and a grandmother arrived, wrapped in lace, followed by her children and her grandchildren. It was like a scene from a Dolce & Gabbana ad,” she recalls. “I love the grittiness of the city, it’s fascinating and it’s the most authentic part of Italy, I think,” she says. “I’ve never had a bad meal there.” Her tips? Stay around the ancient ruins of the Castel dell’Ovo (you can see Vesuvius on a clear day), go see the Caravaggio at the Museo di Capodimonte and explore the hidden Roman amphitheatres of Napoli Sotterranea. Meanwhile, in chi-chi Milan, it’s all about wandering the historic and elegant Brera neighbourhood, or heading to Navigli for the monthly antiques market.
Model Ami Hope Jackson wears the Montserrat Bubble 2 gloves. Photographed by Perry Ogden and styled by Paula Hughes.
Back in Dublin, Paula is a homebird. (When I call her for a follow-up, it’s a dull autumn day and she is roasting a chicken with all the trimmings.) Every day starts with an hour’s walk by the sea, something she deems essential for her wellbeing, alongside yoga for clarity and balance. Life is busy. In September alone, Paula’s gloves appeared in Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, fashion mogul Lauren Santo Domingo namechecked her pieces, and high-profile publications such as The New York Times, The Financial Times and Edward Enniful’s new style platform EE72 featured her latest designs – in a big way. Busy as she is, she is not content to let walking and wellness alone feed her energy. After Christmas, flying lessons are on the cards: “I switch off by immersing myself in something high-octane,” she explains.
Coming in 2026 is her own range of handbags, something Paula describes as a “natural progression”. She collects vintage bags. (“I wouldn’t call it a problem, necessarily!” she laughs.) Will the bags be as opulent as her gloves? “There will be some drama,” she nods. As with her gloves, designing the bags in Ireland and producing them in Italy will be the magic formula. “In Ireland, we’re known for literature and storytelling. In Italy, they’re known for luxury,” she says. Does that mean she brings the story to her luxurious creations? “I guess so, yes,” she says, with a smile. We can’t wait.
Paula Rowan, Westbury Mall, Balfe Street, Dublin 2; @paularowangloves.
