The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
Leather Rosa came together in 2022, composed by Kate Evans as part of Angela Flanders' Atelier collection, a series of scents rooted in a family history of textiles. Evans reached for leather, agarwood, and tobacco, and placed them around rosa damascena, the cherished heart of so many florals. The result is a dark rose that reads more like an interior than a bouquet, warm, enclosed, the scent of something worn close against skin rather than pinned to lapel. The composition takes a flower that usually arrives dressed in sweetness and gives it a different wardrobe entirely, one built from smoke, cured leaf, and the soft warmth of hide.
What makes the composition earn its name is the contrast at its center. Rose de Mai and Damask rose together are already a conversation, one softer and dewy, the other darker and more resinous, and placing them side by side creates an immediate tension between lightness and gravity. Pairing that with raspberry at the top gives the opening a flash of red fruit, a sweetness that introduces the rose before pulling back. The real twist sits lower: agarwood brings smoke, tobacco adds a dry, almost burnt-leaf bitterness, and leather ties them into something animal and warm.
The evolution
The opening belongs to raspberry and apricot, bright and fleeting, almost like a fruit liqueur poured over something floral. The rose arrives quickly behind it, but it doesn't bloom the way most roses do. Instead of opening into sweetness, it deepens into Damask territory, jammy and almost wine-dark, with that leather note already curling at the edges. The raspberry fades early, leaving the apricot behind as a softer, blunter sweetness, and the composition settles into its real weight: rose against oud, rose against tobacco, rose against leather. The leather note isn't sharp or saddlery, it's worn-in, butter-soft, the kind that comes from years against skin rather than anything freshly tanned.
Cultural impact
Leather Rosa belongs to a category of rose-forward compositions that pair the flower with heavier, more textured materials like leather, oud, and tobacco, rather than treating rose as a delicate centerpiece surrounded by lighter florals. Within Angela Flanders' Atelier collection, it sits among fragrances that translate material and texture into scent, and the collection itself is a deliberate exploration of that idea, a series where each composition borrows its logic from the world of fabric and tailoring.
