The Glove Poppit story begins in our small flat in Aberdeen, Scotland.  We had a tiny kitchen with very limited surface area and got fed up with smelly, wet gloves hanging around the sink with nowhere to store or dry them. Sadly, my partner can’t do the washing up without a pair of gloves on. Finally, I say to him (the glove dependent one) “can’t you make something to put them on”?

We talked about the idea, drew a few designs and then ….out came the tools.  The initial version was made out of scrap wood we had in our storage shed and was put together on the table in our lounge. We used Glove Poppit No.1 in the kitchen and gradually realised how useful it was.  We loved it. Our gloves had a home, they were dry on the inside when we next put them on and we could dry other things on the frame such as bottles and bags.

We made several versions and family members queued up to receive them.  Encouraged, we thought about making Glove Poppits on a more commercial scale and had one made out of acrylic. The company we asked to do this did a pretty atrocious job but luckily a family member did something much better. He made us some crackers and finally we had viable models to try at home. This helped us realise crucial design points: Acrylic was fine for making a small number but there was no way we could use this method to make large quantities for the retail market.  Despite this, we approached Lakeland in December 2014 and sent them some information and photos. They liked the acrylic version and it was accepted as a product for their catalogue! 

We were now way out of our depth but were fortunate enough to find a professional design company in Glasgow. We worked with Gregor and his team for months to prepare the Glove Poppit for large scale production in plastic. This process has involved several refinements to the design and we must be up to Glove Poppit No.15 by now.

The Glove Poppit: a simple concept that has proved a design challenge to get just how we wanted it, so that it is stylish and multi-functional: for gloves, bags and bottles!