Chypre
Montana
For Claude Montana, cut, rigor and simplicity are the keys to a successful garment. This is how he conceived each of his creations until he became an emblematic figure of 1980s fashion. Moreover, like many other design houses, he has now expanded his activity and also devotes himself to perfumery.
Montana perfumes
ChypreThe history of Claude Montana
Claude Montana was born in 1947 in Paris and was raised by an authoritarian father. Despite this, his childhood was very open to the artistic realm. Thus, Claude Montana developed a passion for design, fashion and style in general from a very young age. Once he had obtained his baccalaureate, he left Paris to settle in London. There, he created jewelry out of papier-mâché and was noticed by Vogue magazine. This early recognition allowed him to return to Paris to become the assistant of stylist John Voigt at Mac Douglas. Within this house, he learned to work with leather, a skill that never left him and that remains one of the distinctive signs of his visual identity to this day. He then worked at various ready-to-wear houses, until he staged his first show in 1975. From then on, he was noticed by numerous fashion magazines such as Marie-Claire, Vogue and Elle. As his success became international, he created his own brand in 1979. Claude Montana then became one of the emblematic figures of 1980s fashion. A close friend of Yves Saint-Laurent, he was quickly regarded as one of the greatest talents of his generation. Finally, in 1990, he joined the house of Lanvin, for which he won two Dés d'Or for his fall-winter 1990-1991 and spring-summer 1991 collections. According to him, he considered this to be a sort of culmination of his career.
Montana fragrances
In fashion, Claude Montana always distinguished himself through his work with noble materials such as leather, silk and cashmere. Thus, he carried over his highly harmonious style into the realm of perfumery. It is therefore something of his taste for detail, his personal vision of elegance and his modernity that can be found in each of his fragrances. If his shows often created frenzied excitement, the success was just as intense when Claude Montana presented his first best-seller named Parfum de Peau. This was a fragrance laden with powerful, animalic notes, held in a spiral-sculpted bottle. It clearly evoked the curves of a woman in motion. It was followed by Montana pour Homme, a fragrance built around leathery notes. From then on, the Montana range kept expanding until the arrival of Mood Collection and Montana 80, the house's latest creations.
As a sort of ultimate reward, Claude Montana was also made Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in July 2004. Moreover, his career is fully retraced in a book written in 2009 in collaboration with journalist Marielle Cro.