Although it has gone through thousands of years, the means and purpose of using the leather to protect the foot remain unchanged. Old leather shoes have always been regarded as expensive and luxurious shoes. To make a pair of high quality leather shoes is a complex tanning process. With different types of leather, different cleaning chemicals are used, so that the kinds of final leather to produce shoes is extremely diverse. The following are the most common types of leather.

Rough Out

Speaking simply, rough-out is similar to the full grain leather, but the rough surface is outside, while the soft surface is inside. At first sight, rough-out is seemed as suede, but they are different. Made from full grain leather, rough-out are often used to make shoes in the snow and are used by marines due to its good quality which is thick, durable and very highly frictional. Marines do not need beautiful shoes, so they put the rough surface ouside to increase the ventilation of the shoe. Today, rough-out are widely applied in the field of fashion. And the price of those shoes from rough-out is quite expensive.

Vegetable Tanned

Vegetable tanned is the healthiest and most environmentally friendly type of leather. It has been since ancient times and is a way of manually tanning from natural acid found in some plants. This kind of leather is tanned by using bark, branches, leaves and even using fresh fruit in certain techniques. Before the surface is made into different colors as designers' want, the leather looks very natural, has beige color and perfume of wood and soil.

Veg tanned leather is water absorption and often quite expensive. But with durability and toughness, the leather after being used for a long time will become darker and more beautiful.

Chamois leather

Chamois leather is tanned from mountain goat's skin that originated in the mountains of Europe. When chamois became almost extinct, chamois skin began to be replaced by sheepskin and sheep leather is proved to be better than chamois leather. So, today, chamois leather is almost mostly made from sheepskin. This type of leather is unique because it is tanned ny fish oil for a luxurious look, golden color and softness.

Due to the nature of sheepskin absorb moisture well, sheep leather also absorbed wax and oil well. This helps the products from the sheep leather after being waxed and added water will have a good waterproof and softness for movement.

Scotch Grain

Scotch grain leather - also known as pebble grain leather - was developed in Scotland. The ancient Scottish people made leather by barley from old barrels of whiskey, which causes the skin to shrink and produce a distinctive appearance. Scotch grain leather is more weather resistant than other types of leather.

Shell Cordovan Leather

Shell cordovan is one of the rarest and most durable materials on earth. Shell cordovan is derived from the buttocks-skin of the horse due to thick pores help increase waterproof and good wrinkle resistance. Cordovan leather only creates wrinkles at the vamp instead of at the whole shoes like cowhide. Cordovan leather can last for several decades if properly maintained. Due to rare skin and expensive tanning, the price of cordovan leather is very expensive and usually has very little color. 

Calfskin

Caflskin leather is soft, thin, smooth, very durable, especially less susceptible (scratches, scars ...) than cowhide. So this type of leather was a popular choice in the early medieval era and used as textured leather when the paper did not appear. Regarding shoes, calf skin responds well to high gloss and can last for decades if maintained well. If you just want a pair of beautiful dress shoes, then choose shoes with calfskin leather.

Patent leather

The patent leather is dyed and treated like other conventional skin types, but it is added a final step to perfecting it, which is to coat the entire surface of the leather with a chemical layer with extremely high gloss level to make patent leather as a shiny mirror. Patent leather is thin, light and is often tanned from calf skin so the price is very mor expensive than artificial kinds of leather.

Above are some common types of leather used to make men's dress shoes, in addition to some popular types of leather in the men's fashion such as full grain leather, corrected grain leather, suede, nubuck, leather pull up, ...