Old Guard is used to describe a body of customs — around mentorship, protocol, dress, earning of titles, and the wearing of Leather — associated with the founding generations of the modern Leather community. Descriptions of Old Guard practice vary between lineages and cities, and much of what is remembered is transmitted through oral tradition rather than written record.

The term is sometimes idealised and sometimes contested; contemporary practitioners generally treat it as one strand of a wider inheritance rather than as a fixed rulebook.

The customs described as Old Guard developed largely from the 1950s through the 1970s in North American and European Leather bars, motorcycle clubs and private circles.