LONDON — So, you’ve realized that those shapeless but comfortable shoes you’ve come to favor do not impress clients, that those sleek Italian driving slip-ons with treads curving up the back no longer announce that you have a special style.

One remedy might be having shoes made from a leather so rare, so exquisite, so exclusive that its purveyors have exhausted the thesaurus to come up with adjectives to make you want it.

Only a lucky (actually, wealthy) few hundred have been shod in this leather. And only a few dozen more will be able to join their ranks, since the two shoemakers here that have access to it will soon be down to their last hides.

The leather is pre-Revolutionary Russian reindeer hide and is said by its owners to have wonderful qualities of wear, luster and aroma. The shoes made from it are strikingly beautiful, notable for their rich mid-brown color and cross-hatching applied by the hands of Russian tanners in the 18th century. But however exceptional the leather is, it comes with what is for many a more appealing feature: an intriguing history.