LeatherMontale
Montale was founded in Paris in 2003 by Pierre Montale, upon his return from Saudi Arabia where he composed for the local nobility. The house built its catalog on oud wood, a material then little used in the West, and on an aluminum bottle borrowed from the containers in which Grasse stored its concentrates.
Montale perfumes
Oud brought back from Arabia
Pierre Montale spent several years in Saudi Arabia, where he composed for royal families and discovered oud wood. He returned to Paris and opened his house in 2003. The founder claims to have been the first to import and work with this material in Europe in the early nineteen-nineties, and states that he sources its essences in Cambodia, India and Laos.
The catalog includes several dozen references built on this material. A rare feature in niche perfumery: the house attributes all of its compositions to its founder, without crediting any outside perfumer.
An aluminum bottle, and its reason
The cylindrical aluminum bottle was not primarily a design choice. It keeps light away from the essences, which allows maceration to continue after bottling — the house describes its fragrances as living materials that gain in roundness over time.
Pierre Montale explained in 2018 that this container came from the perfumers of Grasse, who used it in larger formats to store their concentrates. Adapted to the size of the retail bottle, it became the house's visual signature.
Beyond oud
The collection has expanded to rose, offered by the house in its varieties from France, Bulgaria, Turkey, India and Saudi Arabia, and to white flowers — jasmine, tuberose, orange blossom, ylang-ylang — which the house says it extracts in Grasse.
Citrus notes open most of the formulas, with bergamot and lemon leading the way. The register remains that of a highly concentrated perfumery, claimed as such against the dosages of selective perfumery, and sold at a price that positions it below the Parisian niche houses.