Conceria Cloe Shell Cordovan

The tannery specializes in vegetable-tanned horse leathers, including shell cordovan, avancorpo, and culatta. Shell cordovan from Conceria Cloe is characterized by high oil content that promotes patina development, creating a lustrous, almost metallic shine as the leather ages.

Conceria Cloe produces shell cordovan using traditional slow vegetable tanning in pits at their facility in Ponte a Égola, located in the Pisa province of Italy. The tanning process extends up to six months, allowing the horsehide to fully absorb the tanning agents.

The leather is made using horse butt, the section of the hide where skin density is at its highest. This dense fiber structure contributes to the leather's characteristic resistance and durability while maintaining flexibility and softness. The tannery sources horsehides exclusively from European raw materials, ensuring consistent quality in their production.

Shell cordovan from Conceria Cloe exhibits several distinctive characteristics that develop over time. The leather features shine, resistance to wear, flexibility, and softness that maintains its appearance over extended use. The high oil content embedded during the tanning process makes the leather highly prone to patina development, producing a lustrous, almost metallic shine with aging and use.

The leather's dense fiber structure, derived from the horse butt section, provides durability while retaining a soft, gummy texture. The vegetable tanning process creates leather with a very soft temper and subtle grain variation across the surface.

Conceria Cloe offers shell cordovan in various colors, including sage, electric blue, chestnut brown, and olive green. The tannery produces both finished and unglazed versions of shell cordovan.

The unglazed shell cordovan, also referred to as Crust Shell Cordovan, features a matte finish that provides a natural, unfinished appearance. This crust finish offers an alternative to the traditional high-gloss shell cordovan surface.

Conceria Cloe shell cordovan is used by bootmakers including Sagara and Flame Panda for their footwear production. The leather is applied across various leather goods categories, including belts, watch straps, wallets, and boots.

The tannery also produces horse culatta, a layer sitting just above shell cordovan from the hind section of the horsehide. This material shares similar characteristics with shell cordovan but comes from a different part of the hide.