Regular patent leather means that the skin is covered with a glossy plastic film, cheap and easy. These shoes from the Japanese bespoke shoemaker Marquess are made in a really exclusive, very unusual patent leather that has been treated with a kind of waxy surface, which gives the same shine but allows the leather to breathe and receive care as ordinary leather. Patent shoes that have an interesting story.
Patent leather began to be used due to the fact that the very high-shined black oxford shoes, which were the dress code for men to different formal dress codes, loosed colour onto the women’s long dresses when they hit it hard on the dance floor or walked close to each other. So if you are one who dislikes the plastic patent shoes that are offered today and instead choose to shine a pair of regular black wholecuts for the tuxedo dinner, and a wiseacre picks on you for not having pantent leather shoes, then you can explain that it’s you who keep old traditions alive to the highest degree, and should your partnerwear a lighter long dress, you may well state that you will pay the dry cleaning afterwards. Either that or try to get a hold of a pair from Marquess in the wax-treated patent leather above.
Is it true that the original patent leather was flesh side up? Meaning, the shiny surface was applied to the flesh side, with the grain untreated facing down.
Tim: I believe you mean hot stuffed leather, which is when it’s treated with lots of waxes, oils and tallows to become super saturated and shiny (if buffed), and very waterproof. An old method, which was used mainly for army boots (which is the base for why we shine the shit out of those still today…). Not the same as patent leathers and its history.