VIENNA - Once fashion accessories rather than tools for confronting the weather, fans and gloves as old as 700 years are getting their day in the sun with a new exhibit at Vienna's Museum of Applied Arts (MAK).

"The Artist in his Atelier" designed by Ferdinand Astorfer in 1740 from bones and parchment. Once fashion accessories rather than tools to confront the weather, fans and gloves as old as 700 years are getting their day in the sun with a new exhibit at Vienna's Museum of Applied Arts (MAK).

"Gripping Diversity" retraces the history of both items, with rarely seen pieces dating back to the late Middle Ages and Japan's Edo period.

The exhibit is part of a series on accessories at the MAK that started last year with handbags and will continue next year with headdresses and shoes.

While an obvious draw for women, the show has plenty on offer for male visitors, including gloves worn by men, especially priests, and Japanese fans that used to be carried by men, the museum insists.

Among the colourful and diverse objects on display are fans made of lace, straw, lacquered wood and even ivory made to look like feathers.

The exhibit also includes century-old fan leaves -- painted semi-circular sheets of paper that formed a fan when attached to a support -- and ornate beaded and embroidered gloves worn by clergy or royal figures.

"The MAK's textile collection is incredibly large and rich," said curator Barbara Karl.

"The fans are really just a small part of the collection and were never exhibited until now, so that was one of the reasons to show them as part of this exposition series," she told AFP on a guided tour.

More than just decorative, fans were used early on as advertising surfaces -- a practice that has carried on today -- and as dance cards for ladies at a ball.

Fan language, an allegedly popular means of silent communication between a woman and a man depending on how the object was held, was just a product of early PR however.

"A fan extends your gesture and if you use it in a certain way, it can show a certain state of mind," Karl said.

"But fan language was first invented in the 19th century and was a marketing ploy by a manufacturer of fans," she insisted.

The oldest pieces on display are so-called cockade (circular) fans dating back to the 14th and 15th century and used for religious purposes.

Much like fans, gloves -- once an object no lady would leave the house without -- have disappeared from daily life, except as means of protection and warmth.

The exhibit, which opened this week, hopes to place these "neglected" objects back in the spotlight, according to MAK.

It runs until April 2012.