Shopping for Gloves in Rome - One of Life's Little Pleasures

A work of art?  In some ways. In reality a few of the many gloves stacked floor to ceiling in the delightful, tiny Mieli glove store in central Rome.

Just off Piazza San Silvestro, this shop is a regular stop for me. I need leather gloves to ride on the scooter, and they get rather worn after a season of that use. So I head back every Spring to Mieli to buy a new pair, and pick a new color.  Last year dark green; this year vibrant purple.

In the same family hands since the 1920s, the store
features dozens of photos of luminaries, some with
notes to the owners.

The store is easy to miss, because it literally takes up about 15' square (5 m sq) of floor space.

Gloves of every style are on sale: lined with cashmere, lined with silk, unlined, fingers closed, fingers open, dappled leather, smooth leather, short, long.  The only requirements? Leather and gloves (guanti) and "made in Italy."

You'll see Josephine Baker, Gregory Peck and Gina Lollobrigida, Enrico Caruso, on what little wall space remains.

The affable salesclerk told me about the family's long-time ownership. An older woman came in while we were talking and sat in the one chair.  At the time, I didn't have the guts to engage her in a conversation, but I should have.  She's a current owner.

The prices are reasonable.  My rather long (protect those hands and wrists!) purple unlined leather gloves were about 40 Euros ($44 today).

Mieli Gloves, via di San Claudio, 70; tel. 06 678 5979. hours generally 10:30 a.m. - 7:30 p.m. (except Mondays opens at 2; closed Sundays).

And not too far from Orologeria Senzacqua, where I get leather watch bands.

Dianne

Shopping for Watch Bands in Rome, part 2

We know the kiosk is now a feature of US life - airports, malls, you name it.  And the truck is also a shopping feature in many cities, especially the food truck in Los Angeles. 

But this seems a variation on the theme to us - a truck that sells watchbands and batteries--"Orologeria" means, well, "watch store."  The truck is parked not far from our apartment in the San Paolo neighborhood of Rome; so we watched it regularly with curiosity.  For example, when it is closed, the signs are covered up. When it is open, they are displayed, the back opened up (as in the photo), and you are warned not to lean on the case.  

It's also just half a block from the street Katie Parla featured in her Atlantic food column recently; you can get a new watch battery and some great food at the same time. 

I never bought anything there (as some of you know from an earlier post (Sept. 6); I like getting my watchband near the Spanish Steps). But some friends found it a helpful spot to pick up a battery.

And, oh, btw, now that my watch isn't working (but my band of course is new), I wish I were going by there in the morning... so I could get it fixed easily.

Here's to the ingenuity of the watch band & battery truck. 

Dianne

Dianne Goes Shopping, and You Can Too

The title is a bit ironic, here, since I am not an enthusiastic shopper.  But I have my places, and one is "the watch guy," as we call him, in the fancy shopping district that spreads out from the foot of the Spanish Steps to via del Corso.  I've splurged here on 2 colored leather watchbands - red 3 years ago, blue this year.  And Antonio Senzacqua graciously puts them on my 20 year-old, only cost $20 then, Timex, and charges me at most Euro 18.  Definitely a better deal than the $5 band I bought at Target that lasted 3 weeks. 

Senzacqua has an enormous selection of bands (and patiently lets me look through them) and everything else.  His tiny shop is crammed full of clocks and watches, including antique ones dating back to the 1600s.  He specializes in antique and modern watch and clock repair as well.  The store has been on the same street since the 1920s. 

When we last stopped by and chatted him up a bit, he proudly gave us a copy of a news article about his shop and his love of his trade.  And, he posed for the photo above.

There's a lot of hue and cry in Rome these days about the loss of artisan shops, especially in the more touristy areas like the Spanish Steps.  So it's wonderful (to us) to see an artisan still hard at work and maintaining his piece of land here.

Antonio Senzacqua - watch repairer trained in both antique and modern clockworks, via della Vite 14/a; tel. 06.6789437.  Don't expect him to be open mid-day like typical tourist shops; he's a real Roman.

Dianne