For some it kind of is, the leather subculture is a thing, and needless to say leather is a pretty important part of it.

I am not at all qualified to really go into it too much beyond just pointing out that it exists.

I do have a little anecdote about it though. I know someone who is an all-around very kinky person, into all kinds of fairly extreme bondage stuff. She entered and won some sort of “Ms Leather [city we live in]” competition/pageant thing a few years back but there was a bit of controversy about it because she wasn’t part of the leather subculture, even though there was a pretty decent amount of overlap between her own kinky interests and the leather community, and so she decided to resign her title and apologize over it.