Types of Shoe Leather: Calf, Cordovan, Suede, Exotics and Tanning

The upper leather is the most visible part of a pair and one of the main items in its price. But what you are really choosing is not a name or a colour but the leather’s origin, its tanning and its finish: these decide how the pair will crease, age and cope with moisture.

What you are choosing when you choose leather

Leather is chosen for three independent properties: which animal and which part of the hide it comes from, how it was tanned, and how its surface was finished.

These three decide everything else: how soft the leather is, how it behaves when wet, whether it creases in fine lines or large folds, whether it takes the shape of the foot, and how many years it lasts.

In Sergey Grechushkin’s workshop the client has the final say on leather, and the shoemaker suggests specific options. He puts his position in one line: he never offers poor leather.

Below is what is worth understanding about each property so that the conversation at the visit is a real one.

Tanning: vegetable and chrome

Tanning turns hide into leather, and it shapes a material’s character more than anything else.

Vegetable tanning uses tannins, natural polyphenols from the bark and leaves of plants such as chestnut, oak, hemlock and quebracho. The hides are stretched on frames and kept in vats of gradually rising tannin concentration for several weeks.

Chrome tanning uses chromium(III) sulphate, which cross-links the collagen. This stage takes less than a day, a completely different pace from the weeks of vegetable tanning.

The properties differ accordingly. Vegetable-tanned leather is not very elastic but develops a natural tone over time and is traditionally used for shoes, belts and luggage. Chrome gives a supple material, bluish-grey in its raw state, more resistant to heat and less prone to shrinking in hot water.

The balance is lopsided: chrome tanning accounts for 85–90% of modern leather production. Vegetable-tanned leather is the minority, and it costs more precisely because of the time and work involved.

For shoes, vegetable-tanned leather holds shape better and ages more beautifully, while chrome-tanned leather is more supple and more tolerant of moisture and temperature. Neither is better in itself; the choice depends on the style and how the pair will be worn.

Calf: the working standard

The main material for shoe uppers is calfskin. It is thinner and more even than adult hide, with finer pores and a smooth surface without a pronounced grain.

Why calf? Evenness matters more for shoes than for a bag: the pattern pieces are small and numerous, and they must all look the same. On uneven leather one piece differs visibly from the next, and it shows in the pair.

Thickness matters too. A shoe upper has to hold its shape and still flex at the ball tens of thousands of times a season. Too thin, and it does not hold; too thick, and it breaks into coarse folds.

In wear, calf creases in a fine network where it flexes. That is normal and inevitable. Regular care with firm creams slows it down, keeping the leather supple so the creases do not turn into cracks.

Cordovan: how it is made and how it differs

A distinct material, worth knowing because it behaves unlike any other.

Cordovan comes from horsehide, and only from part of it: the fibrous layer known as the “shell”, found beneath the surface of the hide over the horse’s rump. After tanning and finishing, the outer layer with the hair is removed by splitting to reveal it.

It consists of densely packed fibres, and that gives its defining quality: cordovan does not crease into a network. Being connective tissue, it is smooth and has none of the grain of ordinary leather. Instead of fine creases it forms soft rolling waves.

The name comes from the Spanish city of Córdoba, long a centre of leatherwork, where this kind of leather originated.

Cordovan costs more than calf and is harder to cut: the usable area per hide is small, and the pieces must be placed with the grain in mind. But a cordovan pair ages differently, without the typical crease pattern.

Upper materials compared

The table sums up how the main upper materials differ in character and in wear, and where each belongs.

Suede and nubuck-type leathers: a different logic

Napped leathers are a world apart from smooth ones, and mixing up their care is the most common and least reversible mistake.

How they are made: the surface is either removed or the flesh side is worked, and a nap is raised by buffing. So by definition such leather has no protective outer layer; it has a nap instead.

What this gives: softness from day one and a different fit. Napped leather takes shape readily and presses less on prominent areas. For feet with bunions or sensitive spots, that can be decisive.

What it costs: vulnerability to water, salt and road chemicals. Wet suede loses its nap in patches, and salt leaves white marks that do not always come out. A suede pair is for the dry season, and it needs a water-repellent spray before the first wear, not after the first rain.

And the main rule: never put cream on suede. It flattens the nap and ruins the surface for good. Suede needs a brush, a suede eraser and a protective spray, three tools that do nothing for smooth leather.

Exotic leathers: when they are appropriate

Skins with a strong natural pattern are a separate case, and the shoemaker treats them without prejudice.

His argument is simple: the pattern and texture are the decoration. A pair in such leather needs no broguing or decorative stitching; the material already carries the visual weight, and the shoemaker’s job is to transfer that beauty to the shoe intact.

Two practical rules follow. First, choose a simply cut style for exotics: the fewer pieces and seams, the better the pattern reads and the less it is broken up at the joins.

Second, placing the pieces becomes part of the craft. The pattern must be symmetrical on the left and right shoe and make sense with the shape, which is handwork no template can do.

And on practicality: exotic leathers are usually more demanding to care for and cope less well with salt and road chemicals. They are for going out and for dry weather, not for winter commuting.

What “poor leather” means in practice

The shoemaker’s line, “I never offer poor leather”, needs unpacking, because from outside poor leather often looks better than good.

The main sign is a corrected grain. The natural flaws of the hide are sanded off and a polymer coating with an artificial grain pattern is applied. New, it looks flawlessly smooth. The trouble is that the coating lives a life of its own: where the shoe flexes it cracks and peels over time, and it cannot be restored, because there is no living grain underneath.

The second sign is a thick coating in general. Leather that does not absorb cream and stays glossy after you apply it is most likely covered by a film, and it cannot be cared for in the usual sense.

The third is unevenness within one hide. For a bag it hardly matters; for shoes it means some pieces will look different from the rest.

So in bespoke the point is not simply “genuine leather” but leather with a living grain that can be cared for over years. That is what separates material that lasts in wear from material that only looks good on display.

How good leather imitations have become

One episode from the shoemaker’s practice shows the state of the market better than any discussion of materials.

He went to a shop to buy synthetic material for styles where real leather was not needed, and found that he could not tell the artificial leather from the natural, although he has worked with leather since 1982. There were about sixty kinds of substitute on sale, for any texture, for patent, for anything.

Modern substitutes imitate not only the look but the properties: they let air through and take cream. A case in point is a winter boot made entirely of synthetics, right down to the fur. The difference does not show in the shop but after six months of wear, when the pair is simply finished.

The practical conclusion for anyone buying ready-made shoes: the label “leather” on an inexpensive pair means little, and even someone with forty years’ experience cannot always verify it by eye.

How leather is chosen at the workshop

Leather is discussed at the first meeting together with the style, the sole and the construction, and in that order rather than the reverse.

First the task: what kind of pair, for which season, how long you will walk in it and on what surfaces. Then the style, because the pattern sets the demands on the material. Only then the leather, because different leathers suit different styles.

The roles are clear: the client chooses and the shoemaker suggests. This is not a formality: samples are looked at and handled on the spot, because neither softness nor the character of a surface comes across in photos.

Prices start from 100,000 roubles a pair and depend on the style, leather, construction and the complexity of the foot. Leather affects the estimate twice, through its own cost and through the work: cordovan and exotics need more precise and slower cutting.

The timing is the workshop’s usual: about six weeks for the last, from four weeks to make the pair, about ten weeks for a first pair.

Caring for different leathers

The general rule is shared; the specifics differ.

Smooth uppers, calf and cordovan, are cared for with firm creams. Liquid emulsions give a quick shine but seep into micro-cracks and break the leather down from within; the shoemaker calls this the care mistake that kills good shoes fastest.

Suede and other napped leathers need no cream at all: they need a brush, an eraser and a water-repellent spray. Cream flattens the nap and spoils the surface for good.

Exotics need their own products and caution with water and salt. There is no universal remedy; ask the shoemaker when you collect the pair.

For all of them: dry slowly at room temperature with paper inside, and replace heel tips and sole protectors in time. Almost any part of a shoe can be repaired; it is too late only when large cracks appear where the foot and toes bend, and lack of care is what brings a pair to that state.

— What do I think of exotic leather? It is always in fashion. There is always a pattern, a texture, and that is decoration in itself. All that is left is to carry that beauty onto the shoe.