Sublime Leather
Eau de Parfum, Ferragamo (2025)

Sublime Leather by Ferragamo (2025) is just a ho-hum modern "dark leather" fragrance that walks in the shoes of Tom Ford Tuscan Leather (2007), and Dior Sauvage Elixir (2021). Honestly, if you're looking for a smoky patchouli and davana sort of smell, you can do better (for less) with things like Montblanc Explorer Extreme (2025), which this actually feels like an unused mod for, especially since that one is a proper parfum and much more complex than the usual Montblanc bashers would have you believe. This isn't about Montblanc though, it's about Ferragamo, a brand that has much more riding on how well its releases are perceived by buyers.

The various fragrances in the Ferragamo Eau de Toilette (2019) range have been pretty hit or miss, and all but the original is some twist on the leather theme. I've liked most of them, but this one is just a bit tiring to my nose. The opening is misleadingly sweet and ambery, making me thing they've gone down the gourmand rabbit hole with this offering, but soon that gives way to a smoky birch patchouli mixture that has davana underneath providing part of the "suede" type leather accord. It never gets as oily as you'd like, nor as spicy, and nary any muskiness either, which for the style it wants to inhabit, is a miss. Performance is just okay, which isn't okay at this price.

In an endless sea of choices, the worst crime this commits is being forgettable, as it isn't particularly offensive either, but I can't even score it a neutral because I just think about how much money is asked for it, versus the experience you're getting, versus what other things of similar stripe cost, and how much more rewarding they are to wear. No fragrance is an essential purchase, but neither do you want to feel like you literally just set your money on fire with a Zippo lighter when you smell a new scent you just bought, as someone you know walks by with a superior take on the same idea, or something from the bargain bin that shows the same effort as what you just got. Thumbs down