Heritage
A house, in its own words
Sarah Baker began developing her perfume line in 2013, initially working with the Institute of Art and Olfaction, a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to experimental perfumery. Her first documented collaboration was with perfumer Ashley Eden Kessler. Before entering fragrance, Baker operated primarily as a visual and performance artist. For one early project, she invented a fictional fashion company called Imperio Rosso and, with support from the Arts Council, produced a deliberately hyperbolic short film and exhibition in 2014 that explored the mythology of fashion and beauty brands. This theatrical approach to world-building became foundational to her fragrance practice. Baker has described beginning with an artsy short film about a fictional perfume, then translating that conceptual work into physical form by transforming an art gallery into a perfume exhibition. The Institute for Art and Olfaction later listed Sarah Baker Perfumes among houses participating in their programs, situating her work within the experimental perfumery community. From these origins, the brand expanded into a coherent collection released across several years, with the fragrance lineup documented through various independent fragrance databases and review platforms. Sarah Baker approaches perfumery as an extension of her artistic practice, treating fragrance as a medium for narrative exploration rather than simply a beauty product. Her work emphasizes storytelling, with each fragrance emerging from a conceptual framework that she develops before engaging perfumer collaborators. Baker has stated that her fragrances were initially inspired by cinematic and theatrical elements, reflecting her background in visual and performance arts. The house markets its scents as gender-optional, a positioning that reflects a broader philosophical stance on scent as a personal experience divorced from traditional marketing categories. The relationship between Baker and the perfumers she works with appears collaborative rather than directive, with her providing artistic direction while the perfumers translate her vision into chemical composition. Recent projects have incorporated performance elements, including collaborations with Palm Tree Production that combined theatrical staging with fragrance launches. This integration of multiple art forms distinguishes Sarah Baker Perfumes from houses that approach fragrance purely as a commercial enterprise.