Monte Durham Shares What’s Next For His Alexandria Salon

The Salon Monte owner and Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta star, 66, chats with us about Alexandria and his latest projects.

In September, you celebrated two years of Salon Monte in Old Town. Do you have plans to add other locations?

We have been cautiously looking at other locations. We’ve looked mostly in the Old Town Alexandria area. We want to stay within the 22314 zip code. We’re waiting for the right time and place. We may make this one a little larger because we’re so small and tight — 850 square feet! In addition to hair services — precision cuts, styling, custom color highlights, smoothing treatments — we’d offer eyebrow grooming and things of that nature.

That’s exciting! Do you have plans to expand beyond hair care?

It’s a little bit hush-hush, but we’re looking at a custom skin care line. We’re looking at working with a larger company on this.

You were on Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta for 10 years and hosted spinoffs like Say Yes to the Prom, too. You’ve also talked about a new reality show based out of Salon Monte. Where are you with that?

We’re actually in talks with a new production company now. We’re working on a “stack,” as they call it, when you lay out the beginning, middle, and end of the show. I can share that we’ll still be in the salon, but it’ll be really focused on weddings. There’s no date for it to come out yet. We still have to put together a sizzle reel of what it would be and then try to sell that to the networks.

Any other projects in the works?

It looks like there is an opportunity for me to tilt my head into the design aspect of wedding gowns. I am in the process of coming up with nine different looks. Fingers crossed that it could launch as early as next spring!

When you walk around Old Town, what are your favorite boutiques to visit that inspire you?

There’s too many to name specifics. But when I think of Old Town, what attracts me the most is people’s love of history. People’s love of dogs. And that, everywhere you go, people just open the door. So, I try to visit all of the boutiques. I think that Old Town is on the cusp, with these boutiques that we have, of bringing in unique, different, and cutting-edge style and design.

It sounds like you have a lot of creative irons in the fire!

It’s good, right? How lucky am I?!

This story originally ran in our December issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to our monthly magazine.