Welcome to
the world of FIVE
FIVE: Our name rings out loud and clear, since our mission is to protect hands (and the FIVE fingers that come with it…) during activities that require high-performance technical gloves, such as riding a two-wheeled vehicle. For over fifteen years now, we’ve been helping riders enhance their enjoyment at the handlebar, while protecting hands from injury in case of a fall, by equipping millions of motorcycle enthusiasts around the world.
Gloves are an item designed for safety, but also for comfort.
Our commitment can be stated
in three words:
PROTECTION / FITTING / DESIGN.
PROTECTION – because your hands are essential. Imagine having to spend even a single day without using one of your hands due to an injury, even one that’s not serious. The smallest activity would be truly difficult, and the discomfort would be highly distressing. Protecting your hands is crucial. We don’t always think about it, but as a reflex, we tend to put our hands out in front of us if we fall. They are, therefore, particularly exposed. Our goal is to reduce the risk of specific injuries related to motorcycle riding.
FITTING – because gloves form the link between you and your motorcycle. To truly savor piloting your motorcycle, this connection should be seamless, allowing for perfect responsiveness each time you touch the controls, whether you’re accelerating, braking, or changing direction. Feeling every move at the controls (and, by extension, every movement of your motorcycle) is essential. It’s even further proof of safety. And this should happen with a certain amount of comfort. Our desire is clearly to enhance the enjoyment you feel when riding your motorcycle.
DESIGN – because we consider a functional aesthetic to be especially important. In our view, the shape of each piece that makes up a glove stems from the role it plays in its use (protection, comfort, ventilation, abrasion resistance, etc.). This is why we design and craft each element independently, without using any standard pieces, so that a FIVE glove is exclusive and distinctive. Our designs are often imitated, but never equaled! So, you might as well choose the original, FIVE.
Our craft: we are Glove specialists.
Hands have the particular complexity of being extremely sensitive parts of the body (sensitive to cold, heat, and collisions), highly exposed in case of a fall, and replete with a number of small, fully articulated elements (bones, tendons, muscles, blood vessels). More than anything, it’s through our hands that we experience one of our five senses, the sense of touch. In other words, the very least element of a glove that’s badly designed or wrongly placed is immediately uncomfortable.
A badly fitting glove or one that’s not right for your body type or riding style can considerably diminish your riding pleasure, or even ruin what promised to be a great ride, because your attention would be focused on the discomfort rather than the beauty of the landscapes you’re experiencing. A glove should therefore perfectly mold to the curves of your hand as it grips the handlebars and controls and allow for total freedom of movement of each and every joint. This is why our gloves are pre-shaped and why we take care to perfectly position protective elements, just as we do those that enable joint movement.
As you can see, you can’t just design a pair of gloves like you do a piece of clothing. The glove is not just a simple extension of your jacket, contrary to what non-specialist brands may lead you to believe. In terms of gloves, the approach has to be even more technical, due to the small size of the pieces assembled, their number, and the freedom of movement of the hand that is hard to obtain, yet indispensable. Because, by definition, layering levels of fabric and protective elements can swiftly end up hindering the mobility of the hand, if real expertise isn’t used. This is why we’ve made the choice to become THE Glove Specialist, because we believe in the virtues of specialization and expertise.
It’s hard to imagine how complex designing an effective, high-performance glove can be. Designing an “aesthetically pleasing” glove, like many brands do, is relatively easy. Creating a glove that’s functional and both elegant, comfortable, and protective, no matter the size, and for mass production, presents a whole other challenge. This is our vocation. We’re no cleverer, nor more intelligent, than general gear providers. We want to offer gloves that are far better than average, because that’s all we make. We dedicate all our efforts and endless hours, day after day, with each passing month and every year, to just one product: gloves! And this is how we can keep developing our expertise and constantly improving the quality of our products.
A FIVE glove frequently offers
just that much more.
Beyond the idea of comfort and perfect fit, a FIVE glove often offers so much more than competitors’ gloves, if you truly look at the details. It’s not necessarily obvious when you purchase them, but this makes a huge difference when you wear and use them, in terms of comfort, the level of protection, and durability. When you compare the materials that make up FIVE gloves from the rest of what’s out there on the market, you’ll see that, compared to products that are “supposedly comparable” (in terms of price, for example), FIVE frequently offers so much more. From authentic, full-grain leather, when competitors are offering synthetic leather…to real Carbon, when others only offer basic plastic with a carbon look…to Kevlar lining, when other manufacturers offer no reinforced lining. And then, there’s the external stitching, which offers greater comfort but is harder to make, as opposed to standard seams, etc. Our motto: offering the best possible product at the best possible price. The qualities of a FIVE glove can truly be appreciated once it’s worn, even more than in-shop.
Using the finest components
and materials:
this is the FIVE hallmark.
We utilize optimal technology in our products, which leads us to select renowned technical partners, such as GORE-TEX (weatherproof membrane), PRIMALOFT®, 3M® Thinsulate™ (thermal lining), and Dupont de Nemours® (Kevlar) Gütermann® (for threads that are durable, yet don’t cut into the skin), and adopt their innovations for our most advanced products. For example, we were the first to use Nanofront®, an absorbent, non-slip material from Japan, on the palm of our high-end motocross glove, for peerless grip.
We’re not content to simply design our products – We make them in our own partner factories.
Our technicians and colleagues are on site to make sure that each glove that emerges from our production lines is consistent with the initial guidelines set forth by our R&D department in France and our technical lab in Italy, which has developed expertise in gloves over several generations and ensures that our patterns (and our gloves) are in perfect working order…from the smallest to the very largest sizes!
Our gloves are designed to cover the hand, but they are also “hand” made, by expert workers and seamstresses. Making a glove requires a considerable number of manual steps, whether it’s making pieces of the protective elements, cutting, embellishing, assembling, or sewing the elements that compose it. These workers handle the fabrics and rigid pieces and assemble them using a “plain old” sewing machine, with almost unbelievable dexterity. One of the essential aspects of the comfort and proper fit of a glove is the attention given to its assembly. At FIVE, our precision standard in terms of the stitches assembling the fingers, for example, is two times more precise than standard practices in the industry. This lower tolerance for gaps in the alignment of stitches creates an extra constraint for our workers and requires them to be particularly attentive. Nevertheless, it is absolutely essential for a perfect fit, and this is one of the keys to FIVE’s expertise.
Producing in our partner factories allows us to maintain perfect control over our output, including in quality management. It is precisely because our gloves are assembled by human beings, and not by robots (which would be unable to copy the movements of a seamstress), that sometimes a slight gap identified at the moment of assembly creates the need for stitching that may loosen over time. This remains an exception and affects less than 1% of our total output (0.6%, to be exact), a level well below industry averages. We are proud of this low rate (zero errors simply does not exist) and take responsibility for it, to the advantage of our clients, with Premium product support through our international sales network, in order to provide total satisfaction to users of FIVE gloves.
The development of FIVE gloves
is based on real feedback.
It’s in collaborating with top-level riders and listening to the needs of and feedback from thousands of users throughout the world that we are able to develop ever more comfortable and protective gloves. We test our gloves under the extreme conditions offered by top-level competition, before we bring them to market. And the innovations we decide to use for racing benefits the amateur products in our range.
Our official riders take part in MotoGP, Moto3, Superbike, Supersport, Endurance, Supermoto, Motocross, and Enduro world championships… They wear FIVE gloves on racetracks throughout the world and actively contribute to the evolution of our products.
And so, when Michele PIRRO took a spill at over 300 kms/h at Mugello in 2018, and got up without a scratch on his hands, we were truly happy and proud to be his equipment partner. Unwittingly, he helped us study how our gloves perform in a real-life situation, well beyond any tests we carry out in a lab. In the same way, when Peter HICKMAN won the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (the fastest and undoubtedly most dangerous road race in the world) – setting the average speed record at 136 mph -, when Dominique AEGERTER becomes double Supersport World Champion in 2021 and 2022, when team YART becomes 2023 Endurance World Champion, when Thomas CHAREYRE was crowned 8-time Supermoto World Champion, or Steve HOLCOMBE took several Enduro World Championship titles, all of them wearing FIVE gloves, we can’t help thinking that our products do, in fact, deliver the goods for the most demanding riders and athletes.
Though riders are at the very heart of our product development strategy, it’s also a matter of passion. Because all of us at FIVE share a love affair with motor sports. In fact, we have several former professional riders now working for us at the office, and we feel blessed to share great friendships with a number of champions, who have worn or still wear our gloves. We’re always proud to see our official riders raising up their trophies and breaking out the champagne on the podium, wearing FIVE gloves, a sign that these gloves have truly done their job during the race. 😉 But, above all, we design and make our gloves for our clients. For you, who ride every day or simply for pleasure. Thus, we always listen to you and want to have your feedback on our products, so we can learn from experience and ensure that future generations of our gloves include all these evolutions.
Thanks to all of you, who choose to ride in FIVE gloves 😉
Make the right choice in gloves.
To choose the right glove for you, several factors come into play. The type of motorcycle you’re riding. The season you’ll be using it in (Should it be ventilated? Does it need to be heated?). The average distance you’ll be covering. How often you’ll be using it. The level of protection and comfort required. Your budget. Though, in theory, the more a glove protects, the less comfortable it is, our entire job at FIVE is about flipping this equation and making an ultra-protective glove truly comfortable…and vice-versa.
Obviously, no glove can totally protect you in case of an accident. That being said, FIVE gloves are designed to limit the risks of injury and meet CE Moto standards (with the corresponding label sewn inside, which features the Moto icon required in certain countries) on 3 different levels: CE (gloves without protective shells), CE KP1 (gloves with protective shells, providing an adequate level of protection), and CE KP2 (gloves with protective shells, providing a superior level of protection).
We think that each type of motorcycle and rider deserves a specifically adapted glove. But this hasn’t stopped us from offering certain multipurpose, cross-category products.
This is the purpose of this catalogue, where you can discover our products, down to every last detail. They are categorized according to different product groups: Racing, Street, Urban, Custom, Adventure, Winter, Heating Technology, Woman, and Off-Road, from the top-level product to the most affordable one. And you’ll find the summary of our collection at the end of the catalogue, to provide you with a full overview in a flash.
