I cycle in leather dress gloves which work fine with the first type of Rohloff gear change, the triangular one (which I intend to replace like for like if I can when mine wears out). In the summer I use silk-lined gloves and as the seasons progress gloves with progressively heavier linings. I no longer cycle in temps around and below zero Celsius, but when I did, used suede gloves with a thick knit-wool lining because it is impossible to find gloves of natural shorn sheepskin (as distinct from mittens). Such knit wool linings should be of Aran wool, which is apparently washed less than lesser wools, so that the wet-rejecting lanolin remains in the wool (or so I was told by a lady who want to Aran on a pilgrimage -- I leave going to such uncomfortable places to harder men than me).
Long ago, before the real sporting goods store closed and left the "sports" store for fashion victims in command (for an experiment, go in there and ask for a Shakespeare rod -- I'll bet money they don't know what it is; and as for actually functional lycra, give over, mate!), they used to stock yellow knit workmen's gloves with glass fiber woven in which was good for three seasons and most of a fourth in my mild weather, and gave much better control on fiddly buttons than leather gloves. Those gloves were a safety yellow, brand name IIRC Mikasa. They lasted forever and when dirty were machine-washable.
So is leather -- if my gloves get a bit smelly after ten years or so, or oily, I go into the shower with them on so as to preserve their shape -- but leather won't take a lot of through-washing of that nature. Still, with fine leather gloves being available once a year from Lidl for under a tenner a pair, and cheaper from China, and considering how overpriced cycle-wear is, you can buy half a dozen pairs of leather gloves when there is a style that particularly suits you, and just throw out a pair every two years, and still be quite a few beers, a Phil's bottom bracket, and a SON dynamo hub ahead of a pair of fingerless "cycling gloves" which will wear out long before leather.
Leather dress gloves have the advantage that they are easy to take off if you need to use the touch screen of your iPhone and put on again without slowing your forward pace. I especially like the style which has elastic sewn in across (but not around) the wrist, which can be a boon as the autumn shades into the winter and you want to keep the wet-bearing wind out (the notorious Irish "soft day", which means a very wet mist rolling across you like musty curtains across a theatrical stage, but not quite raindrops) but it isn't cold enough yet to wear the really thick stuff.
Since I generally cycle in street clothes even for long runs out into the countryside, I don't have any problem with how dress gloves look with lycra, and if I wore lycra, I'd wear leather all the same because for me it is extremely practical, and even economical.
