Lemaire Glove Ankle Boot

Eel is one of the few skins that changes what a shoe can be rather than just how it looks. It is extraordinarily thin and extraordinarily strong for its thinness, with a smooth continuous surface and no scales at all, and it takes a deep even color that reads almost like a liquid finish under light. What it is not is large. A single skin is long and narrow, so an eel panel is not cut from one piece the way a calfskin panel is; it is built, by seaming many narrow strips side by side until there is enough material to cut a shape from. That is why the fine parallel lines running across this boot are there. They are the construction showing, not a pattern applied to it, and they are the honest signature of the material. The rest of the boot is conventional and is meant to be: a clean round toe, a side zip so the shaft can be close without a stretch panel, and a block heel at 8cm finished in laminated leather, which is a stacked build rather than a covered core. The name is the design brief. A glove is close-fitting, thin-skinned, and takes the shape of what is inside it, and that is what a skin this fine allows a boot to do.

We take one pair of shoes a season that is about the material rather than the shape, and this is the one. Eel is rare in a boot rather than in a small accessory, because it takes so many skins to build a panel large enough, and the seamed surface is genuinely beautiful.

Lemaire's footwear is usually the quietest thing the house makes, so an exotic skin cut into an otherwise plain round-toe boot is very much its way of doing an unusual material.

Eel leather upper, with leather outsole, insole, and lining, and a laminated leather block heel. Heel height 8cm. Made in Portugal, in black. This is a multi-material object: the eel is the upper, and the sole, lining, and heel are conventional leather. We hold no percentage composition and no description of the eel's backing, which on a skin this thin is often laminated to a second leather for structure.

One thing worth knowing about the material, because it is stable and widely documented and the name is misleading: "eel leather" in the leather trade is conventionally not eel at all. It is hagfish, usually Pacific hagfish, and the great majority of it is tanned in Korea, where the animal is a food fish and the skin is a by-product of that. This is a fact about the material as the trade uses it, not a claim about the provenance of this particular pair.

An ankle boot with a side zip, so it can be cut close through the shaft without needing elastic. Eel is thin and supple rather than structured, so the upper will follow the foot more readily than a calf boot of the same shape and will feel closer from the start, with less of the breaking-in a stiffer leather demands. It is not a boot with give in the width; a thin skin flexes but does not stretch out the way a thicker one does. We do not hold a size chart for Lemaire footwear. The heel is 8cm, which is the one dimension we hold.

The seamed surface is a fine horizontal texture, so it reads as a solid black from across a room and resolves into line work up close. That makes it a better partner for plain trousers and skirts than for anything patterned. With a cropped or straight-leg trouser the shaft and the seams are visible, which is the point of the boot; under a long skirt only the heel shows, which wastes it.

Eel is not a scaled skin, and it should not be treated like one. It has a smooth continuous surface and it is fed rather than left dry: unlike python, it does take a conditioner, and a thin skin that is never conditioned will dry and eventually crack. Use a light, cream-based conditioner made for fine or exotic leathers rather than a heavy oil or a general boot cream, because heavy oils darken a thin skin unevenly, and apply it sparingly with a soft cloth. Water will darken eel temporarily and the color comes back as it dries, so blot a wet boot dry and let it finish at room temperature rather than near heat. Do not rub it or stretch it while it is wet. The seams are the part to look after, since a panelled skin carries its stress at the joins rather than across a continuous surface, so avoid forcing the zip and use a shoe tree to keep the shaft from creasing hard in one place. For anything beyond wiping and conditioning, use a specialist in exotic skins and tell them it is eel, because eel and the scaled skins want opposite things. Our fabric care guide covers leather and exotic skins, and we would rather talk this one through with you than publish a schedule.

The Micro Ballerina Flat and the Square Flat Ballerina are the flat shoes. The Balloon Pouch is the evening piece in an unusual material. Everything we carry from Lemaire is listed together.