The dress belt, built to stay sharp: a Horween hide over a vegetable-tanned backing, stitched through and stained along every edge.
The backing is what holds the line crisp under a jacket and stops the belt stretching out of the hole you've settled on.
A lined belt is the outer hide over a panel of vegetable-tanned leather, stitched the full length with Vinymo polyester thread. The backing earns its place twice. It holds the belt straight, so the line stays flat under a jacket instead of rolling over at the keeper. And it keeps the hide from stretching out of the hole you've settled on, which is how a soft belt usually ends.
The edges are stained, not creased. From across a room that reads as a finished line down both sides instead of a rolled one, and up close it's the part that stays neat longest. Solid brass rivets hold the buckle fold. A belt like this comes to your shape slowly and then stays there; the vintage unlined belts get there in a month and keep moving.
Essex is the plain one: vegetable-tanned full-grain, soft and round in the hand, and it goes with anything. Waxed Flesh is the reverse side of Chromexcel under a heavy wax, a nap that burnishes darker as the wax wears through. The two embossed belts carry a pressed grain, one hatch and one scotch. All four are Horween hides, cut to your measurement in 26 to 44 inch lengths.