Buying guide for your leather shoes: why is leather expensive? (part 1)

You can't cheat with leather shoes. In fact, it's especially with leather that you can't cheat.

A pair of shoes has the power to dismantle all your efforts at elegance by their simple presence, as sure as a FlicFlac on the wrist of a President of the Republic.

It's fascinating how, as we move forward on the style path, we notice bad shoes more and more. Even though before, they could create an illusion, now that we realize their stylistic power, they challenge us, shock us and, sometimes, we could simply faint at the sight of a shoe that is too pointed.

I saw so many men in suits who didn't look too bad from neck to ankles and who, past this fateful border, ruined everything they had done to be elegant with baboucheesque derbies in black leatherette pattern.

In real life, do you know someone who has pointy feet?

This is because the shoe has something symbolic. It is the foot that it covers, the one that allows us to walk the paths. The shoe immediately betrays the taste of the wearer, but also the degree of care and effort he uses to make himself presentable.

The shoe is shocking because its shape is new in the outfit. It denotes by its very nature. Clothing is often made of the same fabrics, where the shoe is unique in its appearance.

The uniqueness of the shoe is what I would like to see with you. I would like you to develop shoe expertise. That you are no longer stuck in front of a salesman who tells you impossible things. Information is power. And I want you to hold it.

To do this, we will start from A and then we will go to Z, with everything essential that we can tell you at BonneGueule, in order to make you independent.

Autonomous and well shod too.

How do you go from animal skin to shoe leather?

It may sound stupid, but the other day I fully realized that for me to be able to wear my leather shoes, an animal had to die, a calf in this case. I knew this before of course, but I realized it even more as I put on my shoes.

This observation generates a global reflection around the living conditions and slaughter of animals.

The report “Cash Investigation: Luxury, the shocks” of October 9, 2018, without me subscribing to its deliberately provocative and bulldozing tone, made it possible in particular to show how rabbits were slaughtered in China for their fur. Immobilized in tiny cages all their lives, they are then slaughtered without being stunned, then skinned while some are still conscious.

Good. Little slap in front of the television set.

Animals are sensitive beings and it seems to me that, without falling into sentimentality or engaging in a vegan association, each of us should be attentive to the origin of the leather of our shoes in order to avoid being associated to practices that are not worthy. China being the largest exporter of leather in the world, we need to be vigilant.

And then in fact: quality leather requires good breeding and slaughter conditions.

Have you ever noticed the difference in complexion between a person who eats healthily, exercises, doesn't drink or smokes and a person who does the opposite? Okay, well, here's proof that living conditions have an impact on the skin.

The quality of breeding is a guarantee of the quality of the skin. Except that, as this article shows , this is costly for breeders and this is the reason why, in Dordogne, the Pôle d'Excellence Rurale Cuir has decided to remunerate breeders who adhere to a quality charter.

France has the largest cattle herd in Europe, but, as we read in the article, paradoxically, “tanneries and large houses struggle to find hides free from traces of wounds, parasites or dirt. ”

We see in this report on the quality of skins , the areas for improvement pointed out by the General Union of Leathers and Skins (SGCP). This situation of scarcity of quality skins of course drives up prices.

This is a first factor explaining why a good pair of shoes costs so much.

We continue ?

Slaughtering work

Oh yes, I didn't tell you: the skins from which our shoes are made mainly come from breeding herds. And, let's say it straight away, the sale of skins by slaughterhouses is a form of recycling since the primary purpose of animal breeding is not the leather industry, but the food market.

1. Counting

Skinning is the first step in transforming the skin into leather. It consists of removing the skin from the animal while taking care to preserve the quality of the skin.

This work is carried out in three phases:

1. The outline of the parfentes (i.e. the incisions allowing the symmetry of the skin to be defined).
2. Clearance of the sides and shoulders.
3. Tearing from top to bottom or bottom to top.

The third phase is the most delicate because it is the one which causes the most skin defects. This is where the production of quality skin begins! Paradoxically, by the care taken in the work of slaughtering and skinning the animal.

We therefore obtain a putrescible raw skin (likely to rot) which must be stabilized quickly to prevent it from deteriorating.

2. Stabilization of the skin

It's a race against time after that. And there are two main methods for stabilizing the skin: salting or brining.

Salting is an ancestral technique consisting of coating the skin with salt to dehydrate it (it then loses a good part of its weight in water).

Brining is the action of immersing fresh skin in a saturated saline solution, for similar purposes.

Here too, it is important to be careful, the salt can “sting” the leather and, stored in an unsuitable environment (notably poorly refrigerated), the skins can become stained and deteriorate.

At this stage, the role of the collector is to classify the raw hides according to their weight, their defects (whether natural or caused by skinning work) and to store them. This first sorting will be of great importance, in order to allow tanneries to obtain the quality of skin they are looking for, depending on the leather they want to obtain.

And we learn in theJacques&Déméter brand journal that 40 to 50% of the price of finished leather is attributable to the purchase of these raw hides. This means that this upstream work reveals and influences the future quality of the leather.

The tanner's work can begin

Long, tedious and difficult work than that of the tanner. It lasts on average 4 to 5 weeks , but this can vary very significantly from one tannery to another depending on the methods used and the quality sought.

Four steps mark this process:

1. River work
2. Tanning
3. Wrenching
4. The finishing

The objective of all these stages is to give the leather its characteristics: its softness, its firmness, its flexibility, its solidity, its smell, its relief.

Once again, to put it into perspective, I invite you to understand that all this energy deployed, this combination of ancestral and modern techniques, time, this know-how, is not nothing and that this influences the final price of 'a pair of shoes.

This is all you pay for when you buy beautiful shoes.

But let’s take a closer look at what this implies.

River work: from green leather to tripe leather

Well, you have to see that at this stage of the transformation, this is what we have:

This is what we call “green leather” or “hair leather”.

But we have to zoom in on the skin to really understand what interests us in leather. Knowing the structure of the hide and understanding what gives it its strength is essential to understanding what makes quality leather .

Here is a longitudinal section to help us:

Leather is only made from the dermis of the skin.

OK.

But there is something very interesting that I would also like to share with you: it is the collagen fibers which give its resistance to leather ( these fibers are present in the dermis of the skin but rather on the surface and therefore a rectified grain leather). (i.e. the surface of which has been sanded to remove defects) is less resistant).

Oh yes, have you just discovered that you can sand leather? You are not at the end of your surprises.

It must therefore be removed from the remaining hair, flesh and fat (subcutaneous tissues) and from preservative products (salt). It can be said in one sentence, but really it's not that simple and besides, it's not a pretty sight either. I explain to you.

After trimming the skin (recutting), the second stage of the river consists of rehydrating the skin to make it supple, by immersing it in a large tank of clear water to which an antiseptic has been added. This is regreening. And that represents 80 to 90 m3 of water per day for a tannery like Haas .

The following steps (hairing and peeling) have two objectives:

1. Get rid of hair
2. Cause a slight degradation of fibers to increase the reactivity of collagen with tanning products

The method consists of putting the skins in a rotating tank (a fuller) into which an alkaline solution has been poured (which we call “pelain”, hence the name “pelanage” to talk about this step). Under the action of the solution and the movement of the drum, the skin will swell, the epidermis will deteriorate and the hair will fall out.

It is by degrading the epidermis that we obtain more supple skin.

At this stage, the dermis is not yet bare. There remains the subcutaneous tissue which we will remove using a machine called a “fleshing machine”. (Idea for movie buffs: write a script for a horror film set in a tannery. With machine names like that, it's almost too easy.)

After this, come the stages of “deliming, candiing and pickling which serve to eliminate basic agents (the skin is very alkaline) in order to avoid reactions during tanning which takes place in an acidic environment.” (quote taken from the excellent blog of the Jacques&Déméter brand).

This river work lasts about a month. Yes, it's long. This allows you to move from “hair leather” to “tripe leather”.

Tanning: from leather to tripe to leather itself.

The role of tanning is to make the skin rot-proof (that is to say “insensitive to swelling and drying, and not transformable into gelatin by boiling water” Bérard, Gobilliard, Leathers and skins , 1947).

It is truly here that the “tripe leather” is transformed into leather with the properties we know about it: in particular flexible and plastic (that is to say it can be shaped).

This transformation is obtained in an aqueous medium, by the combination of the tanning material (= tannins) with certain groups of atoms of the collagen molecule.

When you buy shoes, the seller will be able to tell you how the leather was tanned, or rather the origin of the tannins used in this work: vegetable tanning or chrome tanning?

Vegetable tanning

This is the ancestral way of doing things. This requires even more patience: in fact, it can take from around 3 months to a year and a half.

How does it work?

This involves bringing the skins into contact with vegetable tanning agents, in different tanks with more or less dense concentrations of tannic solution.

Two advantages of vegetable tanning:

1. This makes it possible to produce leather that does not generate allergies...
2. ...nor will it be harmful to the environment (except that it consumes, again, a lot of water).

Vegetable-tanned leather is used by some major brands (Weston in the lead) for the soles of their shoes. This is because these leathers absorb moisture better. They are therefore also widely used for protective clothing: blacksmith aprons, saddlery, etc.

Chrome tanning

It takes place in these drums (a sort of large washing machine drum) in which the skins are loaded with chromium sulfate dissolved in water.

Then, the chromium salts are fixed on the skin using baking soda. The important thing to remember is that there is a powerful reaction between the fibers of the skin and these basic chromium salts to produce highly durable leather.

Chrome tanning is the most widespread: nearly 85% of hides tanned in the world are tanned with chrome salts.

The reasons for this are multiple. He is :

• Cheap ;
• Simple to set up;
• Fast.

Watch out for shortcuts! It is not because it is quick and less expensive that it generates poor quality leather. It's very effective. The main problem with this process is that it pollutes if it is not well supervised.

This is what a professional in the leather industry says on the blog Les Cuirs Nomades :

In the case of chrome tanning, there remains sludge highly concentrated in chromium salts (which is a heavy metal), which are harmful and dangerous when released into the environment. They must therefore be “neutralized” chemically with magnesium oxide, lime or soda. Once dried, the remains cannot be recycled in the agricultural sector (unlike vegetable tanning residues) and must be stored in class I landfills for waste of a dangerous nature.

This process, which must respect certain very strict standards following the latest environmental reforms, is becoming very expensive in France. As in many other areas, industries prefer to relocate costly and legally restrictive operations and thus have chrome tanning carried out abroad, often in developing countries, for which ecological standards are less. strict: problem moved but not resolved!

The magazine UFC-Que Choisir produced this video in 2012 which shows what is happening in India for example .

However, when done well, chrome tanning produces leather of great strength, as I have already said. And which will therefore be very useful for making shoes.

The solution is not to ban all shoes with chrome-tanned leather , but rather to ask brands which tanneries they work with. In France, we can trust Du Puy, Degermann, Annonay, Haas and Roux for example.

Generally speaking, when a brand does not indicate the origin of its leather, it is always deliberate . When it invests financially in a quality raw material, produced with respect for the worker and having little impact on the environment, it has every interest in communicating this to the consumer.

If you want to compare the two types of tanning in more depth, I invite you to read this article by Maxime de Jacques&Déméter .

But let’s continue with this thrilling transformation of leather!

After this tanning stage, our skin is now leather. But it's not quite over yet.

Are you still reading? Courage, there won't be much longer.

Wrenching

The spin

This involves passing the skin through a machine in order to extract as much water as possible, with which it has been saturated since the river work until now.

It is understandable.

Sorting

This involves classifying the skins into several categories according to their apparent quality and their visible defects. This allows tanneries to offer different ranges of products. And, for shoemakers, to find their way through the entire leather offering.

Other operations take place at this time: slitting, stripping, beating, rolling, winding, doling, smoothing (to give it a beautiful satin appearance), dyeing (to give the leather the color of the finished product) and feeding.

Feeding, precisely

We're going to give this leather a little something to eat, because after all these physical transformations, it must be starving. His favorite meal? Fat (fish oil for example or tallow (herbivorous animal fat)).

This is to give even more flexibility and adjust its level of waterproofing : around 6% of its weight in fat, it is rather standard leather for a pair of shoes. And above 20%, the leather is considered oily. Found on winter shoes and boots, mainly because this fat saturation makes them more waterproof. With such leathers, you can jump straight into a meter of snow, it doesn't even matter.

The leather is finally left to dry.

It's ready !

Well almost.

Yes, I blatantly lied.

But this is where it gets even more interesting. Because what is at stake here is the final appearance of the leather and, by understanding the operations that will have been carried out to modify its appearance, you will be able to better appreciate the quality/price ratio.

The finishing

After drying, the leather is not really finished: it is still fragile on the one hand and, on the other hand, it may still have some defects (remember the breeding conditions in particular which can be remembered in our good memory).

Almost demiurgic power of the tanner, he can then choose to rectify the leather (or not) depending on the presence (or not) of defects. And so, he can choose (or not) to cheat us a little bit. Finally, it is rather the shoemaker who will have this choice depending on the selling price of his pair of shoes.

The 5 different possible finishes:

1. Pigmented leather crust : The leather was sanded down to the flesh. Suffice to say that it doesn't do him any good. We will then smooth this crust, give it the appearance of the flower by imprint, and coat it with a thick opaque layer. This is obviously a point of absolute vigilance to have as a consumer. Low-end and not very resistant, this crust. It's not even legally leather.
   

   Split leather. Coarse appearance, low resistance. The wrong choice for a pair of shoes.

2. Rectified grain leather : We also sanded, but less deeply. So much so that we remained in the dermis. A protective layer has also been applied capable of hiding any remaining defects.
   

   Too smooth and too shiny. This is bookbinded leather, that is to say coated with plastic. It's good for the rain but it doesn't age well.

3. Pigmented full-grain leather : The entire dermis has been preserved. We masked the remaining defects with a thin layer of pigment coloring. It is an acceptable leather for mid-range.
4. Full grain aniline leather : Leather without visible defects. We of course have the full thickness of leather. A colorless fixing varnish could have been applied for embellishment purposes (= aniline, well this is a misnomer since we no longer use this organic compound). A leather to choose for your shoes!
   

   Edward Green. You see the grain, you really see the leather. It's beautiful.

5. Nubuck/calf suede : nubuck: very light sanding on the grain side, not intended to hide defects. If there are, they will see each other. This gives a velvety appearance to the leather. Velvet calfskin: same thing but on the flesh side.
   

   Jacques&Déméter Nubuck Calfskin

Obviously, the best shoes are made from full-grain aniline leathers. I'm repeating myself, but it's worth it.

At this stage, if you want, you can give texture to the skin. These are the famous grained leathers which are obtained mechanically: it is a pattern which is printed on the leather using a press.

And no, these leathers do not exist in nature! Have you ever seen a grained calf in its meadow? Me never and I come from deeper in the Charente countryside.

Wow, it took steps to produce leather.

And, now that you know all these things, you should keep them in mind the next time you go to the store. Besides, why not go there as soon as you have a moment to see, touch, test your knowledge (and that of the seller).

"Which tannery does this leather come from?

How was it tanned?

Is it nubuk or suede?"

At that moment, I would love to be on your shoulder, like Jiminy Cricket.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the shoe can be built!

In detail, making a pair of shoes will of course depend on the type of shoe desired (derby, brogue, loafers etc.), its particular aesthetic (perforations, suede calfskin, cap toe etc.) and the assembly (Rapide/Blake , GoodYear, Norwegian etc.) .

Depending on all these parameters and whether the pair of shoes will be made entirely by hand or not, the interventions on a pair of shoes vary between approximately 70 and 400.

I do believe that you need to go through all of these steps to enable you to properly purchase your next pair of shoes. ( The article by Maxime, from Jacques&Déméter, does this very well. It is an interesting read for anyone who wants to explore the subject. )

However, there is one thing you need to know above all: how is the skin that becomes leather cut?

Here is a diagram showing, on a derby, all the parts of the shoe, independent pieces that must be cut out from the entire skin and assembled by sewing them.

The sole :

The stem:

From the patterning and therefore the aesthetics that I spoke about above, the cutter will raise (that is to say cut) the necessary pieces of leather which will then have to be assembled. But it doesn't cut into the skin randomly. As with the selvedge that Nicolò recently spoke to us about , it is of course necessary to optimize the use of the skin as much as possible so as not to waste any of it . I would like to remind you that leather, due to all the care that must be taken in its production, is one of the most expensive raw materials.

However, unlike denim, the cutter will have to be careful when lending leather. It is his ability or not to relax, and in what sense. The challenge is to assemble the pieces in the right direction, so that the lender serves the wearer: this is why a shoe can be tight in width because the lender will play in the relaxation of the leather, but that a shoe will not stretch in length.

But there is still something else. An arbitration that the cutter will have to make depending on the final price of the shoe.

See instead.

Here is the skin of the animal transformed into leather. At the front, there was the head, the four legs at each end.

It is not a question, from this skin, of simply optimizing the cutting by tightening as much as possible the pieces that we want to lift. You still need to know in which part you want to see a particular piece cut out.

Because not all of these parts have the same intrinsic quality.

There are three parts to this skin:

1. The flanks , on the sides. At this location the skin will be distended because it covers the stomach. She may also have been hit with a horn, scratched by barbed wire, or caught the protrusion of a bolt protruding from the sheet metal of the structure housing the herd. Thus, this part is not homogeneous and it can very well give bad leather, what we call "hollow leather", that is to say weaker.
2. The collar . This is the part that covered the neck. It's a bit the same as that of the sides, even if it will have been better preserved normally, less distended. But it is not an exact science. It is still a vulnerable, exposed part of the animal and this will definitely not give the best leather.
3. The rump . The part covering the back and rump of the animal. As you might imagine, this is the safest part for making the upper of the shoe, since it will have been spared the hazards of life in a herd. It will be thick and regular. Softened by the tanner, it will be a very good quality leather.

Thus, at this stage of shoe manufacturing, the price of the finished product can rise very quickly. The shoemaker whose quality requirements are pushed to the most extreme will only use the croupon to make his shoes. This will guarantee a durable and beautiful shoe and will reduce the chances of their pairs having defects.

However, it will take more skin to make a pair of shoes. Since it only uses a small part of it. And this will naturally be reflected in the final price of its product. This can largely explain the differences between two pairs of shoes which, in structure, assembly, and the care given to reinforcements and lining, are practically similar. It’s the leather that makes most of the difference.

You must be particularly attentive to this.

As such, I would like to talk to you more about what we call hollow leathers.

It happens that certain skins are not homogeneous (the sides, the collar), that they present fundamental differences in thickness and density of the collagen fibers which make up the resistance of a skin. In short, certain areas of the skin can be “full”, that is to say firm and tight, and certain others can be “hollow”, that is to say conversely softer, with less outfit.

When a manufacturer decides to cut out certain parts of the shoe in the collar or the sides (I am thinking for example of the guarantors of the shoe), if he is honest, he will do so in order not to inflate the final price too much. of the pair of shoes that he will have chosen according to his positioning on the market, in short his commercial strategy.

It may then happen to this honest shoemaker to find in his offer products which will present a hollow leather, which will have passed despite the vigilance of quality control. With a trained eye, hollow leather is quite noticeable and chances are that, in your life, you have already purchased such leather.

This is what it looks like.

By folding the leather on itself it will become even more obvious to the eye.

If you notice it on a pair of shoes, regardless of their age, I recommend that you take it back to your shoemaker so that they can see the defect. Be careful, however, not to see in the slightest defect the malicious work of hollow leather and the supposed attempt at concealment by the shoemaker. Sometimes a leather can be a little weak without being really hollow. The arbitration will depend on the price at which you paid the pair of shoes...

But we will see all this in the second part of this file especially.

The final word...

Going from a living animal to the leather of your shoes is a long, tedious process that requires a lot of skill and patience. If this transformation process is done well, it can lead to the production of superb quality leather, obtained in compliance with fundamental ethical laws.

Personally, I prefer to be sure of the origin of a leather. It seems to me that everyone has a responsibility here. I of course want to talk about the working conditions of the workers who tan the leather and the way in which the animals are raised and slaughtered. Let us be vigilant and reward the work of those who deserve it.

This is why we say we invest in leather shoes. Better to save up for well-made shoes.

When you see all the technique, time and art it takes to make a beautiful pair of shoes, it's no wonder so many people become calceophiles .

In part two of this feature, we'll take a closer look at what real, beautiful leather looks like on a finished product and answer questions like: Is it normal to have step creases?

Wait, I'll check.

The answer is here: How do you know that a pair of shoes will last you?

Not forgetting our own dress shoes...

Elegant men's shoes: brogues and boots made in England. Chelsea boots, built in the purest English bootmaking tradition. Only the best for your feet.