Goutal
Conteur de parfums — storyteller of fragrances.
Goutal — formerly Annick Goutal — was founded in Paris in 1981 by Annick Goutal, a concert pianist turned perfumer who had no formal fragrance training. She began blending out of personal pleasure, created a butterfly-bottle silhouette that became immediately recognizable, and built a devoted following before her death in 1999. Her daughter Camille Goutal and longtime collaborator Isabelle Doyen continued the house, maintaining its intimate, Paris-of-a-certain-era register through the following decades. The name was shortened to Goutal in 2016. The compositions are predominantly floral and warm — musks, woods, and citruses arranged around a clear central accord. Doyen, who studied under Henri Sorsana, has been the principal nose for most of the modern catalog. The visual identity has remained constant through ownership changes: amber glass, a gold butterfly, handwritten typography on the box. The house has passed through several ownership structures and now operates as an independent niche brand.
DNA over time
Each column is an era. Each colored band shows that family’s share of accord weight across every perfume the house released in that window. Bigger band = the house leaned harder on that family.
