SAINT - JUNIEN

A city that has character

Situated between Limoges and Angoulême, on the RN 141 road, Saint-Junien is the second city of Haute-Vienne region and the second economic pole. It has a large and diversified architectural legacy all over the city. It is also famous for skin tanning, leather gloves manufacture, paper industry. There, you will also discover sites and landscapes that Vienne and Glane valleys offer. It is a dynamic city, commercially speakink, which offers high-quality businesses and services.

A little history about Saint-Junien's gloves

From the 15th century, the fame of Saint-Junien's gloves crossed the limits of this province, and a columnist of the time, Father Bonaventure, tells : " On July 2th 1463, Louis XI came back from Bayonne and slept in Saint-Junien, where he made a triumphant entry among a curious and filled with wonder crowd. The syndics of the town, at the head of guilds, marched past the King, and glovers were allowed to give him gloves for him and his royal companion ". Already, glove was regarded as a mark of elegance, and Saint-Junien glovers' guild received weapons. Saint-Junien gloves were very in favour under Louis XIV. On June 15th 1671, Mrs de SEVIGNE sent to her daughter, Mrs de GRIGNAN, the famous letter where she described " the most astonishing, most surprising, most marvellous, most incredible thing .,.:' It was about the description of a pair of "canepin" gloves, success, at the time, of Saint-Junien glovers. Then came the Empire, fitted delightfully with gloves, and, under the Restoration, one remembers that Brummell used, as a good dandy he was, at least 4 pairs of gloves, ornament for each hour of the day... Saint-Junien's glove-making industry arrived at a range of production that enabled it to dress both Holy Father's majestic hands and those of the most dazzling stars of Hollywood, but also, today, to enhance great fashion designers' collections of Paris.