Etro

Etro is an Italian luxury house founded in Milan in 1968 by Gerolamo "Gimmo" Etro, who began the company as a textile design firm [1][2]. Drawing on the founders' collection of antique shawls, the house built its identity around printed fabrics — most famously the droplet-shaped paisley motif that became its signature. Etro later extended into ready-to-wear, accessories and home, and in 1989 added the fragrance line known as Etro Profumi, the part of the business most relevant to its place in beauty.

The company remains active. In 2021 the private equity firm L Catterton acquired a 60% stake, and in December 2025 the founding family sold its remaining minority holding, leaving L Catterton with controlling ownership [3].

Etro describes its beginnings in a period it calls "a time of social and cultural revolution," linking the young house to bohemianism and nonconformity. The company says it was "founded in 1968 by a family of passionate collectors," and frames collecting itself as central to its creative outlook, alongside craft and a curated sense of style.

The starting point was fabric. According to the company, Etro began as a textile creator inspired by the founders' antique shawl collections. A 1981 trip to India by company executives led to a furnishings textiles line, and the paisley pattern encountered on that journey became closely associated with the brand [3].

Etro entered perfumery in 1989, opening its first boutique on Via Verri in Milan in the same year [3]. The Perfume Society dates the collection to 1989 as well, noting that it began with the amber-led Ambra and grew "with extraordinary craftsmanship and originality, often drawing inspiration from far-flung lands." The scents are often built as single-note or soliflore compositions that, like the house's textiles, can be layered to create personal combinations.

The fragrances are positioned as unisex and travel-inspired. Etro presents its perfumes as "a blend of tradition, research and innovation," composed around woods, herbs, flowers, musk, amber, sandalwood and patchouli. Among the better-known releases are Shaal Nur, Messe de Minuit, Patchouly and Heliotrope. Reviewing Shaal Nur in 2005, the perfume blog Now Smell This called it "unusually light and airy (and cheerful) for an incense scent" and "classified as a unisex scent" [5]. Messe de Minuit, introduced around 2000 by the perfumer Jacques Fiori of Robertet, is grouped with Palais Jamais and Shaal Nur as a trio of dark, resin- and wood-based scents from the line's first decade.

For most of its history Etro was family-run, with Kean Etro overseeing the men's collections and Veronica Etro the women's. That changed in 2021, when L Catterton acquired a 60% stake in a deal that valued the company at roughly €500 million [3]. The following year Etro appointed Marco De Vincenzo as creative director for its women's, men's and home collections — the first designer from outside the founding family to hold the role [3].

The family's involvement ended in December 2025. On 19 December 2025 the founding family sold its minority stake, completing its exit from the company, while L Catterton retained control with a holding diluted to about 51% [3].

In 2018 a former employee, Kim Weiner, filed a lawsuit in the New York State Supreme Court alleging workplace discrimination on the basis of race, gender and age [3].

Etro is an active global house headquartered in Milan. Its fragrance line remains in production and sale, and the brand continues under L Catterton's ownership with Marco De Vincenzo as creative director following the founding family's departure in late 2025 [3].