Leather Sensations

Bursting with character, charm and audacity, leather scents often have a strong signature. After having become quite rare over the last few years, leather is making a remarkable comeback in perfumery this winter.
Report by Nicolas Olczyk

Among the many launches for the 2010 – 2011 winter season, we’ve noticed numerous references to the element Leather. Leather’s return to favor with the big ready-to-wear houses may well have something to do with it. Whatever the reason, both niche houses and big brands are getting into leather again.
At Dior, leather is paired with the smoky notes of oud wood in the explicitly named Leather Oud. A unisex fragrance with subtly untamed accents, it is part of their new ‘Couturier Parfumeur Collection’. In Cuir (“Leather”), one of the three fragrances in her Les Nombres d’Or (“Golden Numbers”) series, designer Mona di Orio pairs leather with the resinous notes of cade wood and opoponax. In Serge Lutens’s Boxeuses (“Women Boxers”), leather is matched up in an unusual, gourmand way, with plum and licorice. In Cartier’s L’Heure Fougueuse (“Fiery Time”), Mathilde Laurent proposes a ‘horse’s mane’ note’, revisiting the leathery-chypre accord with a certain gentleness, half-animal/half-botanical.

Recent fragrances that are bringing leather up to date include Eyody’s Cuir Blanc (“White Leather”), with a creamy feel, and Guerlain’s Arsène Lupin Dandy, a fairly chypry-spicy creation. But the trend isn’t only for in-the-know brands. For their new perfume, Fan di Fendi, the Italian house has wrapped flowers and woods in ‘cuoio Romano’, a leather accord with suede tonalities.

Jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels made leather the key note of their latest fragrance, Midnight in Paris. The result is somewhat sweet, with a black-tea effect softened with vanilla-inflected resins. Intended for men, the scent could well appeal to women too. In fact, that is frequently the case with leather scents. Their strong character often bestows a quality that makes them hard to classify. The fact is that, long before the unisex trend went global, leathery scents were often worn almost equally by both him and her.

From Caron’s Tabac Blond (a tribute to flapper women who smoked) to Bulgari’s Black (with burnt, balsamic effects) via Hermès’s Bel Ami (sweet, spicy and incisive), leather scents have often known how to bewitch both sexes.