Maître Parfumeur & Gantier Cuir Fétiche Pays Homage to the Tradition of Glove-Making (2011) {New Fragrance}

Parisian perfume house Maître Gantier et Parfumeur will launch a new feminine floral-leather perfume from October 2011 called Cuir Fétiche. The name in French translates as "fetish leather." The scent is part of the collection entitled "Accords Mystères" (Mysterious Accords). The Eau de Parfum is said to be chracteristically animalic, voluptuous and sensual...

If your thoughts started wandering in the direction of S-M practices involving the material, this is not quite what the house is making reference to. They are not trying to emulate Etat Libre d'Orange or Agent Provocateur. The leather note is here as a reminder of the historical "gantier" or glove-making tradition that the brand's personality is explicitly built upon and which they perpetuate to some extent by continuing to offer a selection of leather gloves.

When riding and hunting courtiers used to perfume themselves by doning on scented leather gloves, perfumers and glove-makers had been known as one corporation since the 12th century in France and the statute granted them by Philippe-Auguste in 1190.

The name "fetish" is actually here an allusion to those particular perfume notes that the house consider their favorite, signature ones. Namely, they are ambergris, musks, and absolutes of rose and jasmine (see review of MPG La Reine Margot which is a beautifully done primitivist and sensual jasmine perfume.)

The blend relies on very qualitative materials that were carefully selected, we are told, including a "deliciously picked Bourbon geranium, a remarkable mandarin from Sicily and a top-notch jasmine from Morocco."

Cuir Fétiche is also said to have been conceived of more as a skin-scent than as one leaving a significant trail in its wake. It is not a sillage-perfume, and this is where the tradition is perhaps updated as pre-modern scented leather gloves could be quite violently perfumed to overcome the general miasma and effluvia of humanity, even the most privileged segment of it.

Via press release