Leather finished with a hard, high-gloss coating built up in layers over its surface.
CAMEO, the materials database of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, describes the finish as several thin coats of colored varnish, polished with pumice between coats. Commercial manufacture began in 1819 with Seth Boyden’s process, which, BLC Leather Technology Centre explains in Leather International, applied layers of linseed oil finish to fine grain leather and could take up to four weeks.
Today, BLC writes, most patent leathers are made on corrected grain, since so high a gloss needs a surface free of blemishes, and finished with a solvent-based polyester and isocyanate system or a water-based finish. Paraboot instead finishes full-grain calf with linseed oil or resin, and notes that its patent does not breathe and marks easily. BLC adds that patent was traditionally black or white, for evening wear, and now comes in many colors for shoes, handbags and belts; the V&A holds black patent evening pumps by John Lobb from about 1960.
In job listings
Patent leather is seldom named in listings. One that does, for an e-commerce still-life photographer, asks the photographer to light and capture reflective hardware, patent leather and metallic surfaces. The leather itself runs through footwear roles in sourcing, development and quality. See current footwear roles.
