Custom Order
The Glossary
Twenty-eight terms you’ll meet on labels, in listings and in our Journal — each explained the way we’d explain it across the bench. Link to any term directly with its #anchor. For how these terms fit together, read The Leather Guide.
The intact top layer of the hide with the natural grain untouched, scars included. The strongest, longest-lived cut of leather; it develops a patina instead of wearing out. Everything at Paz is full-grain.
Leather whose surface has been lightly sanded and refinished for uniformity. More consistent than full-grain but slightly weaker — and it ages politely rather than beautifully.
A legal grade, not a quality claim: the lower layers left after the grain is split away, often glued, stamped with imitation grain and coated. It cracks where full-grain would only crease.
Shredded leather scraps glued onto a backing sheet — usually 10–20% leather by content. The particle board of the leather world; avoid it in anything meant to last.
Tanning hides with plant tannins — oak, mimosa, chestnut bark — over weeks or months. Produces firm, warm-smelling leather that burnishes well and develops rich patina. The slow option, and the one we choose.
Tanning with chromium salts in about a day. Produces soft, uniform, water-resistant leather that stays the same for its whole life. Nearly all fast-fashion leather is chrome-tanned.
Full-grain leather finished with a heavy wax coat that shifts colour when bent or scratched, giving an instant vintage, two-tone character. Named after saddle leather — no horses involved. Several of our table pieces are cut from it.
An Italian vegetable-tanned leather (Badalassi Carlo tannery) with a matte, lightly textured surface that polishes and darkens dramatically with use. A favourite at our bench for runners and wallets.
Hand sewing with two needles on one waxed thread, crossing inside every hole. Unlike a machine lock stitch it cannot unravel — cut one loop and the seam still holds. Every Paz seam is saddle-stitched.
Thinning the edge of a leather panel with a blade so folds and seams stay slim and neat instead of bulky. Invisible when done well — which is the point.
Polishing a cut leather edge with friction, water or wax until the fibres seal into a smooth, glass-like finish. The last step of every piece we make, and the first thing to check when judging quality.
The gradual deepening of colour and sheen that full-grain leather develops with handling, sunlight and time. A record of use, not a defect. We wrote a whole essay about it.
Linen thread drawn through beeswax before stitching. The wax locks stitches in place, resists moisture, and lets the thread bed into the leather over time.
Fork-like tools hammered into leather to mark or open perfectly spaced, slanted stitching holes before hand sewing. The reason hand-stitched seams have that distinctive angled look.
The two structural layers of a hide: the dense outer grain, where strength and character live, and the looser corium beneath. Every leather grade is really telling you which layer you’re buying. Full guide here.
Sealing the raw cut edges of leather by burnishing, waxing or painting in thin layers. The detail that most clearly separates handmade work from mass production — factories rarely have the time.
A centuries-old Anatolian lace technique built with a sewing needle, knot by knot, no machine involved. At Paz, hand-made lace joined with full-grain leather is the studio’s signature — two slow crafts in one object.
A piece made once and never repeated. Because every Paz design is drawn, cut and stitched by hand, no two pieces are ever identical — even within the same design.
Full-grain hide coloured with soluble dyes that soak into the fibres, with no pigment coat on top. Every pore and scar stays visible, the leather breathes and patinas fastest of all finishes — and marks most easily. Semi-aniline adds a light top coat; pigmented leather is fully painted.
Real hide whose scarred or loose surface has been sanded away, rebuilt with filler and pigment, then embossed with an artificial, perfectly repeating grain. You touch the coating, not the leather — which is why it cracks and flakes instead of creasing and deepening. Often sold as “genuine leather.”
Full-grain leather flooded with hot waxes and oils that shift when the hide is bent or scratched, turning the spot lighter — and flow back with a warm hand. Crazy Horse is the best-known example. Casual marks come and go; deep ones stay as patina.
A quick chrome base finished with vegetable tannins — borrowing softness from one parent and some character from the other. Much of the world’s better shoe leather lives here. Its ageing follows whichever parent dominates.
Tumbling finished hides in a large drum for hours to soften them and raise a pebbled grain. It is how factory leather arrives soft on day one — pre-aged, its future spent before you meet it. Honest full-grain skips it and arrives firm, with its break-in still ahead.
The first weeks of use in which a new full-grain piece softens, moulds to its owner and begins its patina — about two to three weeks for a wallet, three months for a bag. Achieved by use and warm hands, never by heat, oil or soaking. The first chapter of patina.
Colour rubbing off new leather onto clothing or upholstery — the trade’s word for it. Red and burgundy dyes are the worst offenders, especially aniline leathers in their first weeks. The test before you buy: press a damp white cloth firmly on the inside of a flap — almost clean is normal, a strong bleed means the dye was never fixed. Carry a new red piece against dark clothes for the first month.
The dark, brown-leaning end of burgundy — the colour of a classic cordovan shoe. On aniline veg-tan it deepens from wine toward near-black port as the hide takes on oils and years, which is why we recommend it over bright wine for a piece meant to outlive the trend.
Top-grain leather buffed lightly until the surface raises a fine velvet nap — the grain side, unlike suede, which is the fleshy split side. Softer-looking and more delicate than smooth leather: it responds to a suede brush and a pass of steam, and to nothing oily, ever.
An artificial grain pattern heat-pressed into corrected or split leather to imitate the real thing. The tell: angle a light across it — embossed grain repeats like wallpaper, while real grain shows scattered, irregular pores and never repeats. You are looking at a print of leather, on leather.