Men's Fragrance: A Renaissance of Leather

 By Clayton Ilolahia

 

Leather notes in perfumery have existed for more than a century. Numerous threads exist in online perfume forums discussing the beauty of this perfume note. More often than not the perfumes that gain the majority of praise were not recently launched. Many of them are almost a hundred years old. I was interested to read the announcement of fragrance trend predictions by Bell Flavours and Fragrances. The scent of leather rates in their top 10 perfume trends for 2012. This sparked my curiosity. If leather notes have featured consistently in perfume over the past century, how has this note evolved? This trend has been on the horizon with a number of 2010-2011 fragrances containing either Leather or Cuir (French for leather) in their titles. Cuir Fetiche, Cuir Noir, Leather Oud, Mahon Leather, Cuir Styrax and others simply called Cuir have all found their way onto perfumery shelves in the short span of two years.

One of perfume’s most popular leather scents is Chanel Cuir de Russie, released to the world in the 1920s. Like all of the early Chanels, perfumer, Ernest Beaux was the author of this creation. Designed for modern women who lived through les annees folles, Paris in the 1920s, Cuir de Russie is a stunning example of the supple leathery tones a perfumer can impart on a fragrance. Chanel released an eau de toilette version in 2007 as part of Les Exclusifs de Chanel and although it displays all of the feminine floral Chanel signatures, inside lies a masculine base of lightly smoked woods and resins that is perfect for I like to think adventurous males (myself included). A buttery castoreum note paired with musk offers a point of difference in comparison to other leather perfumes that can often feel cold and austere, much like the Russian landscape that inspired their creation. It is said that Cuir de Russie was born from Coco’s encounter with the Grand Duke Dimitri, an exiled cousin of Tsar Nicholas II . He was one of many Russian bourgeoisies who fled Russia to escape execution following the revolution in 1917. Cuir de Russie, with its characteristic birch tar accord recalls the stories of master tanners who utilized the natural birch tree tannins to make quality leathers for the Russian Tsars. (clique aqui para ler o artigo completo)