Where did they come from?

Like all great ideas, Etre Touchy gloves began life as a sketch on the back of a napkin over a cup of coffee...

'Twas a cold December morning in the city of Londinium, and Simon and Paul - co-founders and directors of a design agency called Etre - had been busy taking calls on the iPhones they had recently purchased to impress the laydeez make them appear "down with the kids" make telephone calls on.

Simon was complaining about how he had to remove his gloves every time he needed to make a call, as the iPhone's capacitive touch-screen would respond only to the touch of his naked fingertips. "Bah humbug!" he exclaimed. It was then, however, that he remembered a blog post he'd written a few months earlier about how fingerless gloves were undergoing something of a fashion revival thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices that people are carrying nowadays. Normal gloves make it impossible to operate the tiny keypad of mobile phones, iPods, BlackBerries, PDAs and their kin without frustrating fat-fignrenig prboelms...but fingerless gloves provide the freedom necessary to manipulate these devices quickly and without error. "Maybe you should get a pair then," said Paul.

Simon wasn't too keen however, since - although fingerless gloves afford wearers some additional dexterity - this dexterity comes at a price: Fingerless gloves keep your palms nice and cosy, but since your fingers aren't covered, they get all cold and wet...which, given that the primary reason for wearing a pair of gloves is to keep your hands warm and dry, makes them a bit pointless. It was then that the two fellows arrived at their eureka moment: Most mobile devices don't support input from all of your fingers...in fact, they only support input from your index fingers and thumbs. As such, a completely fingerless pair of gloves is overkill; a pair of normal gloves with missing index fingertips and thumbs, however, would be just perfect! They would give you the required level of dexterity with which to operate your gadgets plus the required level of warmth!

Fuelled by a heady mix of excitement and espresso, Paul and Simon feverishly knocked together a quick blueprint-cum-knitting-pattern on the back of a napkin.

Back at the office, they ran a quick search on touch-screen-related accessories to see if anyone had got there before them...and luckily enough, no one had. The only similar items they could find were iPhone-ready styli - but these were far too big and bulky, and ultimately just another thing to carry around with you all day (and, inevitably, lose). So they decided to make a quick prototype. Paul rummaged around the office and found an old pair of magic gloves - you know, those ones that look baby-sized when you take them out of your pockets but miraculously stretch to accommodate an adult pair of mitts when you pull them on. Magic gloves weren't quite what they wanted, but they were all that was handy (if you'll excuse the pun). So armed with a pair of scissors, Paul sheared off the gloves' index fingers and thumbs above the last knuckle, et voila, they had themselves a proof of concept!

With the proof of concept in hand, they solicited advice from their good friends Dan, Gil and Claude - whose design and fashionistical skills helped turn what at this point was a half-baked idea into a concrete blueprint.

"Great!" they thought, "Let's ring up a couple of glove manufacturers and get this baby into production. With any luck, they'll be ready in a couple of weeks and we'll be able to sell a load of 'em before winter 2007's out!"

How naïve they were!

Getting this baby into production proved an absolute nightmare. The alarm bells started ringing when they found that not a single member of the British Glove Association could (or would) facilitate their design. They sent them photos and sketches and even their magic glove prototype, but not a single manufacturer was prepared to take the job on...so they were forced to look elsewhere...

Simon's parents - Karen and Dave - went on a driving tour of the East Midlands and unearthed a whole heap of manufacturing, knitwear and promotions companies. Sadly, none of these businesses could turn the design into reality either, and one company from Leicestershire - who shall remain nameless - sent the team on a wild goose chase by agreeing to manufacture the gloves - taking payment for their order up-front - only to renege on the deal a week before delivery of the first 2,000 pairs was due. (Don't worry - we got the money back!)

By this time it was March 2008 and the two directors felt like giving up. "What's the point now that winter's over," they collectively sighed. But after remembering that there's a winter every year nowadays - and that the next one was only six or seven months away - they quickly cheered up and redoubled their efforts to push the project to fruition.

So with Britain proving barren ground, Paul and Simon's next stop was China. However, while the prices there were certainly competitive, it seemed very difficult to get anyone to commit to a timeline - especially with the Beijing Olympics looming and the Chinese government deciding to shut down most of the factories in the region in celebration!

Anglo-Chinese communication also proved difficult. The two directors thought that their design specification was crystal clear - it included photos, diagrams, sizes and colour swatches, for example. The prototypes they received in return, however, made it plain that this wasn't the case. And after experiencing several long delays between email communications, they eventually lost confidence and were, for the umpteenth time, forced to look elsewhere.

At this point, the duo was ready to throw in the towel. However, it turned out that towels were even harder to procure than gloves, so they were forced to persevere. Thankfully, Paul's friend "B" threw the boys a lifeline. She owned (and, indeed still owns) a product sourcing and manufacturing company in China that didn't make gloves itself, but knew companies that could.

B reviewed the glove specification with her team in Qingdao, then set about contacting suppliers in their manufacturing network. As quick as a flash, she returned with the answer they boys had long been awaiting: "We can do it". And with that, Etre Touchy gloves finally went into production.

As a result of the Olympics and the backlog of manufacturing work that built up around the Games, however, the two directors weren't able to take delivery of the gloves until November (and had to commit to a much larger order than they really would have liked as an incentive for the manufacturers to push the job through). This meant that the first batch weren't ready for sale until the end of the month. With winter in full flow, Paul and Simon worried that they had missed their window of opportunity and that, by the time word got around about their new product, the cold weather - and more importantly, Christmas - would be over. They needn't have been concerned though.

Thanks to the Herculean PR efforts of Dan, word spread like wildfire - the gloves gracing the pages of hundreds of newspapers and magazines (including, The Sun, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun MacFormat, PC Magazine, Loaded and Grazia) and appearing on several radio and TV stations too (including the BBC, CBS and CNN!). The launch was so successful, in fact, that the worryingly large amount of stock they had ordered sold out within a few weeks. Thus, against all the odds, Etre Touchy gloves had become a success!

Fast forward to winter '09/10 and Etre Touchy gloves are back and better than ever. In line with customer feedback, the team has ditched the acrylic knit of old - in favour of an ever-so-soft 100% lambs' wool design. And no longer are the gloves sourced from China - they're now made right here in United Kingdom by a manufacturer that also produces knitted garments for Gucci and Paul Smith! Nowadays they come in four sizes - men's, women's, youth's and children's sizes - instead of two; and whereas once you could have "any colour as long as it's charcoal with turquoise trim", there are now four colour combinations to choose from...unless you order more than 20 pairs, in which case you can choose from 120 different shades!

...Which brings our story up to date. For Simon and Paul's sake, let's hope the next few years aren't quite so traumatic!