What Luvaria Ulisses is known for
Opened in 1925 by city councilor Joaquim Rodrigues Simões on Lisbon's old Carmo Wall, Luvaria Ulisses is a 4-square-meter shop with its original art deco fittings intact — one of Portugal's last surviving glove shops, still fitting hands by eye.
Luvaria Ulisses opened in 1925 in Lisbon, founded by Joaquim Rodrigues Simões, a city councilor who in 1923 was granted a concession to develop a stretch of the old Carmo Wall left unused at the time and turned part of it into commercial space. The glove shop he opened there, at what is now Rua do Carmo 87A, has kept its original art deco interior and neoclassical façade essentially unchanged since it opened.
At roughly four square meters, the shop is frequently described as the smallest — and now one of the last — glove shops remaining in Portugal, a country where a wider glovemaking trade once served a culture in which, as period accounts note, a respectable woman would not appear in public bare-handed. That social function has faded, but the shop's fitting method has not: staff still measure and fit customers' hands directly rather than relying on standard sizing.
Over a century after its founding, Luvaria Ulisses continues to operate from the same address in Lisbon's Chiado district, a rare case of a single-purpose craft shop surviving essentially unchanged in both trade and location.
How ORBIS reads this city
Best for — Hand-fitted leather gloves from Portugal's smallest surviving glove shop
Lisbon, Portugal
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Where next
- Geier Glove Company — United States
- Maison Fabre — Paris
- Bohemia Gloves — Czechia
Hand-curated for ORBIS · no paid placement