Ambre Sultan was born in 1993 at Serge Lutens, from a piece of amber wax bought in the souks of Marrakech and forgotten for years in a thuja-wood box. Christopher Sheldrake composed the formula: dry herbs, coriander, oregano, laurel and myrtle, over an amber of cistus, benzoin and vanilla, backed by patchouli and sandalwood. The house places it in its Collection noire.
A straight, angular, refillable bottle from the Collection noire, in 50 or 100 ml, which the house says was designed in Serge Lutens’s own image.
Ambre Sultan comes in the Collection noire bottle. The house presents the line as created by Serge Lutens in his own image: minimalist, straight, angular and uncompromising bottles whose pared-down design is meant to set off the richness of the juices. It comes in 50 and 100 milliliters.
The bottle is refillable: the house offers a 150-milliliter refill in recycled aluminum, which fits onto the neck once the cap is removed and the sprayer unscrewed. Its craftsman engraver can also inscribe initials or a first name by hand.
In the fragrance’s early days, the presentation was quite different. Emmanuelle Varron, a customer of the Salons du Palais-Royal in 1993, remembers bell-shaped bottles lit up in the shadows, and a perfume she was learning to wear from the stopper. Stephan Matthews describes a bright orange juice.