With our second Stitchdown Patina Thunderdome in the rearview mirror and the third-annual shoe-and-boot contest on the horizon, we’re picking back up with our How Leathers Age series. This time around, we’re starting things off with a look at one of—if not the—most iconic leathers ever: Horween Shell Cordovan.
Made from the subcutaneous membrane located in the rump area of a horse’s hide, shell cordovan is a leather renowned for its tight grain structure (which rolls instead of creasing), durability combined with an impossibly smooth hand, and ability to take on a tremendous shine.
Chicago’s Horween Leather Co. has produced its legitimately world-famous shell cordovan leather from the time they began operating in 1905. Originally, their shell was marketed as strops for honing straight razors, but with the advent of the disposable safety razor, demand for shell cordovan strops soon diminished. Horween soon found a market for their shell in the footwear industry when they began to supply it to fellow Chicago company Florsheim Shoes in the early 1910s. Today, Horween’s shell is widely regarded as being the world’s best, not only for its overall appearance, but also for its resistance to water spotting and its firm-but-forgiving temper.
Shell cordovan stands apart from other leathers for needing a particular approach to care and maintenance, and with how scarce and expensive the stuff can be, there’s certainly an argument to be made about whether it’s in fact somewhat overrated. But let’s set those topics aside—today, we’re taking a look at how Horween produces its shell, and what the stuff looks like when it’s been given a proper beating.
How Horween Shell Cordovan Is Made
It’s almost cliché for any company marketing a product made with Horween shell cordovan to mention that it takes roughly six months, start to finish, for the leather to be produced. But what exactly goes on during those six long months?
Let’s start at the beginning. Horween sources horsehides from countries such as Canada or France, where horse meat is produced for food and the hides are left over as a byproduct. When the horsehides arrive at Horween’s tannery in Chicago, they still have a layer of hair and are covered in salt (to act as a preservative to keep the hide from spoiling). The hides are given an initial inspection for quality before getting trimmed down to a usable area.
Next, hair is chemically removed from the hides, and the horse fronts (the hide from the front half of the animal) are separated from the horse butts (the rump area). To prepare the butts to accept the penetration of the vegetable tannins that will turn the hides into leather, they make a 24-hour-long visit to the pickling paddles, followed by a two-week rest.
The magic truly begins when the butts are tacked onto wooden slats and then lowered into pits. This pit-tanning process takes about two months, and during this time the butts are lightly agitated as they slowly absorb Horween’s signature blend of tree bark extracts.
Pit-tanning for Horween shell cordovan happens in two stages. The first stage is a thirty-day stint in the tanning pits with a relatively mild, lightly astringent tanning solution. After that, the butts are removed from the pits for trimming and a light shave to expose the shell layer, before going back into the pits for another thirty days, this time in a tanning solution with a heavier concentration of bark extracts.
After leaving the tanning pits, the butts make a brief visit to Horween’s stuffing drums, where they are impregnated with a mixture of tallows and waxes, and the surface of the butts also gets hand-smeared with a layer of oil. What follows is a whopping three months of rest to allow all of these oils and greases to fully permeate the butts.
The butts are then completely shaved and trimmed down to the oval-shaped membranes—the shell cordovan itself—and here the finishing begins. Dyes are applied to the shells, they get hand-slicked to even out the staining, and then they’re hung to dry. Once dried, each piece gets an application of Venetian Shoe Cream, and a large glazing jack with a glass rod rolls and smooths out the fibers of the shells, before a set of giant rollers completely flattens out the shell for the final plating process.
After a final inspection, Horween’s shell cordovan is now ready to be sent out into the world.
Without all of those important steps, Horween shell cordovan wouldn’t exist. But it’s striking that during half of those six months, the leather simply sits and rests. It’s a bit like whiskey in that sense: the quality of the product is greatly improved when it’s allowed to age. Good things take time. For some people, understanding how long Horween shell cordovan takes to produce is part of the reason why this leather is so beloved.
How Horween Natural Shell Cordovan Ages
Shell Cordovan in its natural state is quite a sight to behold. One of the top companies to showcase this un-dyed leather is Viberg, and their Service Boot is the perfect canvas for it. This pair, worn in the most recent Thunderdome by thebootbum, started out with a light caramel complexion.
What’s great about Natural Shell Cordovan is that after some significant wear, a much more noticeable shade of orange sets in, but with a significant gradient that shifts around depending on the area of the boot. The leather may also have more of a whiskey color, depending on the light.
How Horween Unglazed Natural Shell Cordovan Ages
Undyed, unglazed “raw” Shell Cordovan obviously has a much more muted, less shiny appearance from the start, as demonstrated here by these Onderhouds worn by horweendreams (who we previously featured in our story on standout pairs from Thunderdome 2).
Without the layer of glaze, this leather is much more likely to pick up stains, but with care and time they’ll blend in with the toast-brown colors that the shell itself takes on.
How Horween Color 8 Shell Cordovan Ages
These Viberg Engineers in Color 8 Shell Cordovan greatly impressed our judges in year one of the Thunderdome. This burgundy color is one of Horween’s most widely-used shades of Shell Cordovan, known as “Color 8” because that’s what the dye was labeled as by their supplier.
With significant wear, the deeper burgundy gives way to a much brighter red.
How Alden’s Horween Color 8 Shell Cordovan Ages
The reason we’re singling out Alden here is because they’re known for applying an extra layer of dye to their Color 8 Shell Cordovan at their factory, in order to give the leather a much more consistent color. As a result, their Color 8 tends to be less burgundy and more aubergine. These Aldens that were worn by cordovanandcreases are a great example of this.
The aubergine look becomes much more reddish-brown after heavy wear, as well as exposure to sunshine.
How Horween Cigar Shell Cordovan Ages
Alden is also notable for having exclusive rights to a few different colors of Horween’s shell. One of them is Cigar, which starts out as a medium-to-dark brown, as seen here by this pair worn by yallgotbibergs.
Aside from some lightening at the areas where the shell rolled, the original color is fairly intact, with a slight undertone of dark olive.
How Horween Black Marbled Shell Cordovan Ages
Horween produces Marbled (or “Scuffed,” as Viberg calls it) Shell Cordovan by applying several light layers of dye to the shells, and then lightly scraping off some of those layers. The result is a wild, pastel-like appearance. While this Marbled Shell Cordovan—worn by amvoith, who finished in the top ten of the Dome last year—is technically made with black dyes, it has a much more aquamarine look.
Every piece of Marbled Shell Cordovan is completely unique—an absolute wildcard for patina. Also, these Viberg slippers are a great example of how shell can be absolutely CRAZY with rolls.
How Horween Black Shell Cordovan Ages
Yes, we discussed these Viberg Service Boots before in our feature on teacore leather, but we’re highlighting them again, because you’d be hard-pressed to find a more striking transformation of Black Shell Cordovan.
After hard wear like this, you can hardly tell it was ever black.
In Conclusion
Shell Cordovan is an intriguing leather because you can push it in so many different ways. Whatever combination of sunshine, scuffs, scrapes, grit, and grime you put your shell footwear through, you’ll have a pretty unique result. With how pricey Horween Shell Cordovan is, patinating a pair of shoes in this leather might feel like a lot of pressure.
Thankfully, it’s a fairly resilient leather, so even if you put it through the wringer, you’ve got a good shot at bringing it back to life, mainly through brushing (LOTS of brushing). Hopefully the wide array of examples above show you how far you can go with Horween Shell Cordovan through hard wear and good care.