How to Identify Pig Leather?

How to Identify Pig Leather?

Shoe making needs leather of a certain thickness. A men’s shoe is typically done in 1.4 MM thick leather while the lining is between .75 to 1 MM. So overall men’s upper & lining together is about 2 MM to 2.5 MM thick. A women’s footwear is usually thinner leather [except boots] – it’s about 1.5MM thick [upper & lining put together].

Back to blog

01

Pair text with an image to focus on your chosen product, collection, or blog post. Add details on availability, style, or even provide a review.

Now what you need to note is that pig leather is not very thick – for a comparison – Buffalo leather is so thick that there are 3 leathers made out of it – the outer portion is used in upper, the inside portion is used as lining while the middle portion is used to create cheaper suede leathers.

02

Given that pig leather is thinner, it means that it cannot be really used in upper. Its mostly used in lining where the pore structure is distinct and is visible, sometimes pig leathers are used to create suede leathers [which are typically used in girl’s footwear] but identifying such leathers is visually difficult [if used in shoe uppers].

03

In other words, for men’s footwear – pig-leather will mostly be used as shoe lining which is easy to identify, while in very small number of cases it is used in women’s shoe uppers in suede version, which is hard to catch.

04

TZARO shoes do not use pig leathers as it’s too thin for all practical purpose.