De Trévise, de Trevise, Cuir de Russie, Russian Leather, 28 ml. or 1 oz. Flacon, Parfum Extrait, 1920, Paris, France ..

De Trévise, also known as Detrévise, has become an obscure parfumerie now, but was once well known in Paris at the beginning of the last century. Also known as the Parfumerie Royal, because the company purveyed their products to the royal courts, the de Trévise Parfumerie was established at 9th Arrondissement on the 13 Rue de Trévise.

De Trévise Cuir de Russie was launched in 1920, and is presented in classic French bottle. De Tréviseis Cuir de Russie is a gorgeous Russian leather perfume.

The distinct smell of leather is soft on the nostrils and yet so exciting. The scent of leather lies in the midline between masculine and feminine tones. Historically, leather is one of the earliest notes in perfumery, rooted in the tradition of Gantiers Parfumeurs, a guild of Parisian glove makers who made leather gloves for the aristocracy. According to the fashion of the 16th century, the gloves were perfumed with oils, ambergris to mask the scent of animal skin.

Much of the trend for Spanish Leather and Russian Leather or Cuir perfumes also arose from the great furriers of the day who created Cuir perfumes to hide the smell of freshly tanned furs and hides. In the 1920s, one of Coco Chanel's lovers was Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia, the cousin of Tsar Nicholas II, and, according to Chanel's biographer Justine Picardie, the Chanel Cuir de Russie was the "bottled ... essence of her romance with the Grand Duke.”

Several famous leather perfumes emerged in the 1920’s, a time at which the impact of Les Ballets Russes (1909-1929) was very palpable. Russian émigrés having fled the motherland because of the revolution in 1917, had populated Paris and had lent it their own mark of decadent sophistication. Suddenly the exotic East, in which westerners classified the vast Russias since before the time of Peter the Great, became all the rage and the embodiment of everything forbidden and alluring. The datchas, the orthodox churches, the ballads on balalaikas, the Cossacks. Coco Chanel herself would indulge sartorially into the craze for all things Russian, setting up the atelier Kitmir, which would later create the broderies inspired by Russian folklore for Jean Patou, himself the lover of the Grand Duchess of Russia!

The first officially documented leather scent was worn by King George III. It was the Royal English Leather. This fragrance, still available today, was the first fragrance created by Creed, a royal glove maker. The king was so fond of the smell of his scented gloves that he asked Creed to make it into a body fragrance for him. It was Peau d’Espagne!

Top notes are Neroli and Orange Blossom
Heart notes are Orange, Violet, Nutmeg, Rosemary, and Juniper
Base notes are Leather, Birch, Cedar, Vetiver, Balsam, Labdanum, and Patchoul

Offered here is an opportunity to purchase a very rare bottle of this absolutely stunning leather fragrance. The bottle is still sealed. A fairly large amount of evaporation has occurred over the past 100 years. I happen to own a bottle myself, and I can attest to its delicious scent!