Where Are All The 'Deep Vintage' Bottles of MEM English Leather?

A 1963 print ad, the oldest I could find.

One of the many things that plague the fragrance house of Creed is the argument that "deep vintage" bottles that predate the 1970s don't exist, despite Olivier and Erwin's claims to the contrary. Indeed, an internet search fails to yield imagery of anything particularly antiquated, beyond perhaps a few very early iterations of the contemporary flask bottles, all of which read "Olivier Creed." This of course exposes them to constant criticism. 

As I've argued in the past, Creed has a built-in excuse for this problem that, to me at least, actually washes: their pre-seventies output was primarily bespoke. If you're only in the market for individualized orders, there will be no examples of those products for the public to see, not unless any of Creed's clients offer them up. If I'm a multi-millionaire who hires the Creed company to make me a bespoke cologne, and I pay $100,000 for a 17 ounce flacon (with a bonus refresh flacon), the outside world won't see those bottles. They'll never see what I privately commissioned for myself, because, well, it's private. 

Very few people seem to accept this logic, however. So, Creed continues to get hammered on the issue, and likely always will be. But strangely enough, the benefit of the doubt is very readily given to another fragrance that sneakily claims to have a wizened lineage that also is not supported by any available sources, at least not online. The fragrance in question is English Leather by MEM/Dana. MEM had cited English Leather's release date as 1949, with tales of it originally being launched as "Russian Leather" sometime in 1930s Germany, then discontinued, then relaunched after WWII, again as Russian Leather and again in Germany, before being renamed "English Leather" and marketed to Americans throughout the 1950s and 1960s. 

If you look on Basenotes, Parfumo, and Fragrantica, they all cite 1949 as English Leather's release date. This is curious, because 1949 is a long time ago, but not that long ago. There should be an abundance of print ads dating back to the 1950s available online, much as there were for Old Spice, which predates it by nine years. Yet when I search for those print ads, nothing comes up. The oldest ad I can find online dates back to 1963. And, also quite curiously, there is no record of MEM Company, Inc. ever existing on 347 Fifth Avenue. It's like the fragrance and the company behind it were legacy inventions for 1960s consumers, and that invented legacy continued to transition along unchallenged through the subsequent five decades, all the way up to today.

Today, I'm challenging it. Where are all the "deep vintage" bottles of MEM English Leather? A search online yields results that again only date back to the early 1960s. I've purchased the oldest vintage "all-purpose lotion" bottle I could find on eBay, with a label marked "MEM Company Inc., Northvale, NJ" and a bottle marked "Bottle made in West Germany for MEM." The product is clearly from the early or middle 1960s, and it's even possibly a little newer given its pristine like-new condition and blond wood cap. One thing I do know -- it's definitely not a 1950s bottle. I can't find one of those, nor can I find an ad for one.

Neither can Chat GPT, for that matter. I asked the A.I. to utilize its research mode and find me links to documents that prove English Leather predates the 1960s. After conducting an exhaustive scouring of the internet that took just under an hour to complete, it admitted to me that it couldn't find any evidence of English Leather ever predating 1963. There are zero documents, zero patents, zero bottles, zero print ads, and zero photographs to back up the claim that English Leather was released in 1949. Not one single spec of information to support the claim that MEM produced English Leather as "Russian Leather" in the 1930s. No documented proof that MEM ever marketed English Leather to anyone other than postwar Americans. No proof that MEM manufactured English Leather prior to the 1960s. I've scoured eBay for "deep vintage" bottles, and 95% of the deepest deep vintage bottles available are from the 1980s. 

I also purchased the bottle pictured below, after searching "1950s Vintage English Leather," and finding this among only a few bottles. The fancy metallic leafing on the label's border and lettering suggests to this commercial design major that it's an early 1980s bottle of cologne. 

And this is the other bottle I purchased, a late 1960s to mid 1970s vintage:

As with Creeds, the only thing consistent about MEM's production and packaging of English Leather are its inconsistencies. From year to year there are wildly varying graphic designs for the labels and types of wood caps used. No two bottles look alike. Bottles from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s are all very difficult to match, and neither of the bottles shown in this article resemble the 1980s vintage bottles I used growing up. But all bottles have one thing in common -- they all say "English Leather." Where are those first-issue "Russian Leather" bottles? 

What does this dearth of documentation mean for English Leather? Hard to say for certain. It's possible that there are simply no surviving bottles or print ads for deep vintage 1950s English Leather. No surviving "first issue" bottles from 1949. No "dark vintage" bottles of the original prewar release. ("Dark Vintage," by the way, is my term for fragrance vintages that are exceedingly rare, borderline extinct, or possibly never seen.) These bottles simply were used up and thrown out, and nobody has access to them anymore. The print ads? Lost to the annals of time. The documentation of MEM Company's residency on Fifth Avenue in NY City? Also lost. This is all totally possible. 

Or, it could be that MEM did not make English Leather prior to the 1960s, and someone at MEM coughed up a random release date of 1949 to give the brand the postwar luster that so many real postwar fragrances enjoyed. This fib would give it a rosier history than the Vietnam era could offer, and make it substantially more romantic in the eyes of vintage hounds. What guy doesn't want to envision square-jawed mad men of the 1950s powering through their martinis and secretaries while reeking of vintage MEM English Leather? Better that the Silent Generation than the Baby Boomers lay claim to the stuff.

Monsieur Musk (Dana)

There are a few different bottle types for this fragrance, and mine is identical to the one pictured above. I believe this is an interim formula, released between the vintage opaque black glass of the nineties, and the newest silver/black label in clear glass that Dana currently advertises on their site. It's probably four or five years old.

Many people say the musk is a minor player here, but Monsieur Musk is all musk to my nose. It conjures the image of Tom Cruise in Risky Business with Ray-Ban shades and a lit Marlboro. Released by Houbigant in 1973, it was eventually acquired by Parfums Parquet, and wound up with Dana, the humblest of humble outfits, with no masculine beauties to their name - except this one. Somehow they've abstained from messing it up, and I'm happy to say it smells like a Vietnam-era musk bomb. It possesses a kind of suburban bordello raunch, replete with the animalic and floral underpinnings found in pre-Clinton era fougeres. Imagine if you could scissor off the musks of Paco Rabanne PH and bottle them, and that's MM. The experience is a dirty/clean/soapy redolence, pitching freshness against skank, and it smells dated, but very good.

I'm not so sure why, but I get a slight eighties vibe from this scent, hence the Risky Business reference. Its fake citrus note and Castile accent evokes the Whatchamacallit candy bar commercial, permed curls, boxy Thunderbirds, dad building shelves in the garage next to the Caprice with a pack of Newports tucked in his shirt. It was a simpler time back then, though one could say that this type of simple and old-school musk scent was passé by 1985. Still, it's incredibly cheap, very well made, and worth a bottle if you enjoy unembellished 20th century drugstore musks.

English Leather Appears To Be Discontinued

Looks like it'll have to be nothing at all.

Just a holiday observation: if you try to find a bottle of English Leather online, you are out of luck. Apparently stock is dried up, and Dana is no longer producing this classic. The bottle prices range from $24 to $120 depending on size, with the 8 oz jug costing about $100, and the 3.4 oz bottles anywhere from $23 to $75. This is sad, and frankly astonishing. EL used to be the easiest to find and cheapest to purchase. Even Dana's site has none available.

I can't believe that a seventy year-old fragrance, originally produced by Javier Serra and successfully sold by MEM until Dana's acquisition about twenty years ago, is suddenly no more. How could Dana drop the ball like that? What went wrong? Clearly this kind of fragrance is no longer popular, but then again neither are Old Spice and Brut, and they're surviving. What's Dana's excuse? They didn't want to bother lifting the brand up out of the dust of the 20th century, and now, instead of having it as a branch to profit from, it no longer exists.

I happen to have an 8 oz bottle of the cologne, which still contains about 7.5 ounces, and I guess I'll be holding on to it for years to come, as I rarely wear it. The color of the liquid has darkened considerably since I bought it, and upon sampling it yesterday, I found its sharp citrus notes and stark woody drydown have mellowed into a closer representation of the vintage scent. Hopefully another company revives the English Leather name, as it would be awful to think this scent is gone for good.

Navy For Men (Dana)

Of all the weirdo, oddball, and bizarre fragrances for me to like, Navy for Men by Dana takes the cake. I bought my bottle along with a few other Dana "cheapies" in a gift package just after Thanksgiving, and must admit that it has me licked - I have tried my damnedest to dislike it, but can't shake the stuff. It smells like deodorant (it's kind of like Bleu de Chanel, but far simpler), and it's good. Basenoters hate the stuff, which ever-so-perversely gives me pleasure. It receives a slightly warmer reception on Fragrantica, which adds to that feeling. All told, Navy will never win any prizes for Best Masculine On A Budget, but that's not really its fault. That's the wrong category. It should fall under Best Masculine For Guys Who Don't Give A Shit. It takes pride of place there.

I like that Navy for Men is simple, cheerful, unpretentious, and cheap. The notes pyramids for it are usually correct, if a little long-winded - I definitely don't get any water lily, juniper, or leather. There's an eensy-weensy nutmeg note in the base, smothered in white musk, and preceded by bright notes of peppermint, lavender, and tangerine. Navy is all about that top accord, with the minty tangerine effect lingering right into the drydown. If you concentrate real hard, you might perceive a sketch of nondescript carpenter's wood with a dusting of nutmeg, but don't bust a vessel. Only the herbal fruitiness has clarity, but what can you expect for nine dollars? At least there's that much, and not less.

This is the kind of cologne a cash-strapped college guy owns but rarely uses, because he thinks wearing fragrance is for pussies. When he does spritz his collar, Navy's minty sweetness compliments his affable vulgarity perfectly. It's the first thing a girl smells as he slips into bed with her, and the last thing she smells when he dumps her the next day. When my bottle runs dry, it will quickly be replaced.

English Leather Black (Dana)

I have but one simple question: how is it that after sixty years of success with the original English Leather, the brain trust at Dana felt it necessary to release a "black" flanker? When the MEM Company issued the original it was followed by a few flankers, including EL Lime, and every one of them went bust. Seems this brand's flankers aren't in demand, except perhaps Lime, which is missed by a few wet-shavers. Incidentally, Lime's ghost lives on in the recent reformulation of EL, which is rather lime-heavy in the citrus department. There was also a yellow-bottled "Spiced" version, a "Musk" version, and a mysterious "Classic Form" version, which no one seems to know anything about. Funny how these things have their day and then disappear, never to be heard of again. 

I've read that EL Black is a rehash of MEM's Wind Drift (which wasn't attached to the EL brand), but somehow I doubt that's true. Dana's effort in this scent feels remarkably like every other drugstore brand's attempt at "black" versions of popular things. I'm starting to wonder if there's a synthetic base, like one of the famous Schiff bases, labeled "BLACK" for easy, one-stop use. EL Black is basically the dry-woody original overlaid with a piercingly sweet fruity musk note, which blares and blares for all of ten minutes before settling into a nondescript and suedey "leather" base. It gets points for having an ambitious approach to "black," one where crisp citrus is meant to marry metallic blackberry and yield hi-fructose offspring in meadows of manly musk. 

Yet I award a few demerits for being meretricious, offering virtually no material of interest over the course of thirty minutes, despite its rather playful and inviting introduction. Naturally the budget clocks in at around a dollar an ounce, and I'm speaking for the perfumer here, not the buyer, although he isn't expected to shell out any more than that either. Final verdict: try it and see - if you like that fleeting snap of berry enough to forgive the same-old, same-old drydown, there's surely no shame in it. I'm thinking the original is still the only one for me.

Canoe (Dana)

Canoe is another classic feminine perfume that switched gender roles a while back, and now joins Pinaud's wonderful Clubman and the equally wonderful Brut as one of the greatest "barbershop" fougères of all time. Of the three, however, I'd wager Canoe is the low man on the totem pole. Still, for $12, you really can't go wrong with this fragrance.

"Barbershop" refers to the basic lavender/coumarin/moss accord that powders out with any combination of white flowers, vanilla, or musk, and Canoe utilizes a vibrant vanilla note to balance the aromatic snap of lavender in its opening, and the sweetness of coumarin in its heart. There's a lick of orange blossom on top and a dab of talc in the drydown, but otherwise Canoe is simple and fresh-smelling in a very just-out-of-the-barber's-chair sorta way. It's a little more scaled back in strength and longevity than Clubman and Brut, but it's definitely a cross between the two, a bit how I imagine Clubman Vanilla aftershave-cologne smells (I have yet to try that one). Clubman is probably different, but there's no denying that Canoe's vanilla is the trademark note of the scent, distinctive and memorable.

Has Canoe been reformulated down from what it used to be, back when it was sold in the more Art Deco-looking bottle shown above? Well, it doesn't matter. Postmodern culture has moved well beyond basic talcum powder ferns, but that doesn't mean it needs to stay beyond them. When you're stuck between the olfactory fatigue of Amouage and the spice overload of Serge Lutens, wearing Canoe as a low-key weekend scent may be just what the doctor ordered. Even in its current drugstore form, I wholeheartedly endorse its simple smell and mood-lifting effect. This is a good one.

Tabu (Dana)

The banter about Tabu's various reformulated incarnations amuses me to no end. Orientals are generally the most difficult fragrance type for anyone to pull off, man or woman, prince or pauper. In the seventies and eighties they were the scourge of public businesses and meeting places, their heavy spice clouds and headache-inducing vanilla bombs prompting widespread demarcations of "fragrance-free zones." Application was key to success with these things, and even then it was a tricky game - too much, and you smelled like a hooker, and too little gave the impression of unwashed skin (suspiciously-complex b.o.). If you were lucky enough to find the perfect dosage, you still smelled like someone wearing perfume. Nothing subtle about that.

Then the times changed, fresh aromatic fragrances took over the scene, and orientals got sweeter and gradually became sugary gourmands, which still hold the attention of the unwashed Walmart-shopping masses to this day. There's a certain irony to the naming of the ingenious Angel by Mugler, as it reminds me of the movie Hellraiser, when Pinhead introduces his band of merry men as "Demons to some, Angels to others." I like Angel, but I'm sure there's a fair few folks out there who feel it's closer to being a demon. Some things never change, and orientals are still a risky gamble, especially if you live in America, where people are pretty fragrance-phobic.

Dana's classic oriental, seductively named "Tabu," used to be one of those risky perfumes, something only confident women (and men) wore, presumably in the vicinity of martinis and mink stoles. Oddly enough, it's also associated with prostitutes (must be because Jean Carles was commissioned to make it a "fragrance for a whore"), with its skanky floral and patchouli accords. Tabu used to have an ungodly amount of patchouli in it. By some accounts, it was up to 40% patchouli! Which makes Prada's 12% benzoin claim with Candy seem like nothing in comparison. I vaguely remember smelling the older formula of Tabu from a bottle my grandmother owned years ago, and thinking it was super strong, and pretty hellish. But I was young and ill informed.

The current Tabu is a watered-down version of the older thing, with cheapened ingredients and a reduced dynamic in the top and heart notes. There's movement and there's complexity, but no part of it smells deep. Labeled as an eau de cologne, this recent version is light, easy on the nose, but distinctive and well made, and in my opinion, still quite good. If you reference Tabu on basenotes and Fragrantica, you find people experience a root beer note on top, and strident patchouli afterwards. This also applies to the vintage version, which so many claim is the ONLY version of Tabu worth owning. Good luck finding vintage bottles of Tabu with actual vintage 1930's Tabu in it. It takes little effort to fill an old bottle with the current formula and empty a vial of patchouli oil into it, and post it for sale as the real thing on ebay, at a premium. But that couldn't happen with any vintage fragrance, because the world of vintage fragrance is huckster/fraud-free.

The same commentators find the new version also possesses that bright, citrusy sassafras top, followed by a balsamic spiciness, some patchouli, synthetic civet (barely there to my nose), and a mossy sweetness, which I suppose is benzoin. Yet it gets lambasted as being "too cheap." I don't get it, but it doesn't matter - Tabu smells really good. And better yet, it's easy on the nose. The top doesn't slice your sinuses, and is rather airy and fizzy, and yeah, that root beer impression is pretty vivid. The remarkable thing about Tabu for me is how unisex it smells. It reminds me a bit of Old Spice. Men and women can wear this in equal measure without raising eyebrows. And the nifty musical instrument bottle is kinda gaudy and fun, if you can find it. Is Tabu cheap? Yeah, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth a lot. Let's not say it's cheap - let's go with "inexpensive," and given how good it smells, it feels criminal to only fork $10 over for it. Tabu is one of the greats.

English Leather (Dana)

English Leather is yet another critically neglected masculine fragrance that deserves far more attention than it has ever gotten, and I'm happy to give it a fresh look. I used to have a bottle of vintage MEM Company English Leather, but it's either been misplaced, or disposed of - I haven't seen it in months. The biggest problem with the MEM version was its intensity. My math joke about it: two dabs + ten minutes = Tylenol squared. It was nice stuff, but just too much for me, and I rarely wore it.

Fast forward to today, and Dana's reformulation. I bought an eight ounce bottle a few hours ago, and it's terrific stuff. No headache material here. It basically smells the same as the original, but with some interesting tweaks. English Leather always smelled more like leather treatment oil than actual leather to me. MEM's juice was very smooth, with a rich citrus opening full of sparkling orange, lemon, and lime. Dana's opens with a sharper lemon and lime, and the orange is completely gone. This makes for a brighter citrus accord, reminiscent of terpenes, maybe even tannins, which transitions nicely into a lab-balanced, lemon-concentrated Jeffrey Pine scent.

The wood note deepens within twenty minutes, becoming redolent of seasoned riding tack. It's stable leather, but unbrushed stable leather, its dry hide smeared with evergreen resins after a trot through the woods. Eventually, English Leather fades away, leaving a hint of dry wood in its wake. The overall effect is very staid, clean, masculine. There's nothing complicated about English Leather, but it doesn't smell like another hackneyed chemical composition. It only boasts four notes, but they're very nicely rendered, and truly evocative of the English countryside. It's a fox hunt in a bottle.

It's easy to dismiss a simple woody fragrance from the '50s as being dated and cheap, especially when it's only $4 an ounce, but English Leather smells of expensive leather, and leather is timeless. Like Pino Silvestre, English Leather is the definition of truth in advertising, and getting what you paid for. In this case, the name and the scent say it all, and you get much, much more than you paid for.