The Story
Why it exists.
The beginning
In 2016, Jil Sander released The Art of Layering, a collection of three flankers built around the original Simply Jil Sander. The idea was simple: the original was so refined, so carefully composed, that layering something on top risked ruining it. So instead, they pulled the existing accords apart and amplified specific threads. Touch of Mandarin intensifies the top. Touch of Violet takes the heart. Touch of Leather leans into the base. Christophe Raynaud was tasked with the leather flanker, and he made a choice that says everything about Jil Sander: he didn't add anything new. He took what was already there and turned it up until it became the whole point.
The original Simply was a chypre built on leather, violet, and patchouli. It was composed with discipline, the kind of restraint that looks effortless but requires real conviction. Touch of Leather does something interesting: it strips away the polite distance. Bergamot and mandarin still open the composition, but the leather arrives faster and stays longer. It's not an aggressive leather, amber softens it, patchouli gives it somewhere to live, violet powder keeps it feminine. Cedar underneath reminds you this came from a perfumer who understood structure. The result is a leather-forward fragrance that feels native to a house that built its identity on knowing when to stop.
The evolution
Bergamot hits first, clean, brief, citrus-bright. Mandarin follows, sweeter and rounder. Then the leather. It doesn't wait politely like it does in the original. It arrives in the first twenty minutes and plants itself. The violet is there too, dusting the leather from underneath, keeping everything soft and feminine even as the base gains weight. Cedar builds slowly. Patchouli settles in. The amber warmth doesn't announce itself, it simply makes everything more human. By the second hour, this has become a skin scent. Moderate sillage, which means it follows you more than it fills the room. That's appropriate. The leather lingers longest on fabric, lasting through an entire day. On skin, it fades to a faint warmth by morning, a trace, not a statement.
Cultural impact
Touch of Leather occupies a specific space: it satisfies the curiosity of someone who wants to understand leather in fragrance but isn't ready for rawhide and tar. The powdery violet keeps it feminine. The amber keeps it warm. The leather keeps it interesting. What Jil Sander understood with this flanker is that leather doesn't have to be aggressive to be honest, it can be refined, it can be soft, and it can still mean something.
