Cool Hunting

Last winter I frequently answered my iPhone with my nose—an occasionally humorous but oftentimes frustrating solution to the conundrum of how to stay warm and take calls. This winter, with Freehands, that won't be an issue. Freehands, the gloves that let you keep in touch, feature fold-back thumb and index finger tips to expose the fingers you need to use a touch screen, keyboard, MP3 player, PSP or simply to pull something out of your wallet. Small magnets keep the folded back tips from flopping around when they're folded back.

Freehands is a glove line that was born out of a collaboration with my father, Stanley, a glove manufacturer. I never expected to go into the family business (my grandfather and uncle were also glove manufacturers). I was complaining about the incompatibility between gloves and touch screens one night over dinner and we both immediately realized this was a problem we could do something about.

For our first season we wanted to keep things simple. We created three unisex styles: Fleece, Stretch and Leather available in sizes extra small to extra large. We decided to only make them in one color: black. Perhaps the best part, they're $20 (Fleece), $30 (Stretch) and $40 (Leather).