Ducard's Gauntlets from Batman Begins

Me, trying (and failing) to look menacing while demonstrating that yes, you can really bend your arms in these despite the thickness of the leather - it's 3-millimetre saddle-strength stuff. Oh, and that haze at the bottom is not fear gas, honest. I think my camera just stood on something yellow.

The gloves. I ralise Ducard wears lovely creaky and very tight leather ones in the film, but finding tight-fitting longish leather gloves in my tiny hand size is next to impossible. Plus, satin is so much more sensual and so much easier to sew the leather hand-guards to. The slightly crazy ornamentation on the latter was carved into the top layer of the leather with the aid of a linoleum cutter.

Detail of the lacing. Again, the original gauntlets don't have any lacing showing, but then they probably have people to put the things on the actors too. I have to be able to put them on myself, so I've got lacing. Satin ribbon lacing, of course - one is a girly Mlle Ducard, after all.

And this is how I got the spiky things affixed to the outer side of the forearm: they poke out through slits in the material. The spikes themselves consist of two layers of 3mm leather glued together except for the very bottom where I split the leather to roughly 1mm thickness (a sharp scalpel comes in very handy for this) and glued it to the inside of the gauntlet on either side. Voila, danceproof - and only slightly dangerous!

And this is what it looks like from the inside - all covered up under a strip of black silk and very comfortable to wear. Batfandom, here I come!