Currently reading : la peau de shagreen

la peau de shagreen

8 December 2010

Author : clement-delepine

I recently grew an obsession with shagreen, a very specific kind of leather consisting of rough untanned skin. It used to be cut up from a horse’s croup and dyed green afterwards.

The word shagreen derives from chagrin in French, meaning sorrow. For those familiar with Balzac, La Peau de chagrin is made of this crude leather. The word chagrin itself derives from the Turkish word sagrï, meaning the prepared skin.