What is Shagreen

A short definition of the Shagreen

Warmly welcome to Daphoco furiniture’s website. This paragraph is to clarify what is Shagreen. The word Shagreen derives from the French chagrin and is related to Italian zigrino and Venetian sagrin, derived from the Turkish sāğrī / çāğrī ”rump of a horse” or the prepared skin of this part. The roughness of its texture led to the French meaning of anxiety, vexation, embarrassment, or annoyance.

In a short definition, Shagreen is the rough hide of a shark or ray, covered with numerous bony denticles and used as an abrasive and as leather. In real life, Shagreen is durable leather with one side covered with round calcified papillae called placoid scales. These calcified papillae create a smoothly rough texture that has been used through history as a mild abrasive, like sandpapers in the processing of smoothing wood and metal work. Due to its roughness, Shagreen has been applied for many purposes in life through countries and from generation to generation. However, there has been some controversy about whether shagreen is an environmentally correct material. While some sources claim the use of the material may threaten the species, designers who use the material insist that their practice does no harm.

At Daphoco, we claim that we only use faux shagreen which we make from resins. Through many years of working for some home and accessories companies, we have got a lot of experiences in manufacturing methods. We have been creating resin molds to make faux shagreen sheets which are so fine and detailed that it is almost impossible to tell the difference between real shagreen and our faux shagreen as it is glued on furniture and gifts.

See more in the article: The brief history of Shagreen