This past weekend, a relaxed California Sunday proved the perfect time for a launch for Sarah Baker at ZGO Perfumery in San Francisco. I was completely thrilled and rather moved.
I had been invited by ZGO Perfumery to launch Riders, the latest addition to our flagship collection while I was in California. I was also asked to run a masterclass in their well established ‘Founder’s Masterclass’ series. Or, in this case a founder/perfumer masterclass since I invited Ashley Eden Kessler, the nose behind Riders, to join me.
The response was fantastic, a full house. Some people had even traveled all the way from L.A. to attend—deeply appreciated! And, it was lovely to see old friends and supporters of the house such as San Franciscan Sebastian Jara aka The Perfume Guy. But it was also fantastic to meet locals discovering what our house does for the first time.
I started with an intro; a little about myself and my roots in San Francisco. I was born there and relocated to Buffalo when I was a wee baby. So, I always grew up hearing stories from my parents about the glory days of SF in the 70s when they founded Project Artaud and hosted legendary poetry readings with their friend, acclaimed poet and painter Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books, of which Lawrence was a co-founder. I later studied at San Francisco Art Institute and got incredibly inspired during those three short years. But, I left "the city by the bay" to complete my education as an artist with an MA at Goldsmiths, University of London and have been based in the UK ever since.
Understandably, San Francisco remains a huge inspiration to me, and it is the reason our bottle caps are International Orange. It's an homage to the Golden Gate Bridge. The color of the paint was developed specifically for the bridge and is responsible for its iconic appearance. Part of the reason for the color was to make it more visible to vessels and aircraft in San Francisco's infamous fog. But it was also intended to represent opportunity, creative expression, and ingenuity.
It was very meaningful to me to co-host the event with Ashley, my first perfume collaborator back in 2014, when we started working on Leopard and Greek Keys. Later, in 2016, we started working on Riders. So, of course, we both have a lot of stories to share about some of the mishaps and beginner mistakes that one makes when diving into unknown territory—in my case as a fledgling perfumer, while Ashley bravely worked to understand how a contemporary artist might approach fragrance.
"Ashley wanted the leather to smell expensive, and she studied the plush interior of a vintage Rolls Royce"
Leopard, Greek Keys and Riders at ZGO Perfumery
At ZGO Perfumery, we presented key materials and accords from the three perfumes that Ashley has made for the house. Using the fan technique for smelling accords, each material was presented on a scent strip and then wafted to give the general effect of combining the materials, a technique often used when blending to show the cursory effect of how the materials work when combined.
For Leopard, Ashley chose materials that were used to form a lipstick accord, a rose accord that Ashley created, beeswax, and ionone alpha, which has a powdery effect.
For Greek Keys, we focussed on materials for the Mediterranean accord: calone, rosemary, and floralozone.
And, for Riders, the peach accord, para cresol (with its animalic tones) and hay. We also showed Suederal which was the key soft leather material used in the leather accord that Ashley made especially for Riders. Ashley wanted the leather to smell expensive, and she studied the plush interior of a vintage Rolls Royce to create this effect.
We compared the disparate materials to the final perfumes, and I told stories about the creation of the fragrances, the inspirations, the names, the scripts that we create for each of our fragrances, and anecdotes about responses to them.
Andy and Chris from ZGO kindly helped to disseminate the scent strips, and Claude and Tani, co-owners of ZGO, were great hosts and organized a delicious Peach's Revenge-inspired cocktail for the event.
There were gift bags and giveaways, and a few of the people who bought fragrances wanted their bottles signed. I bagged a few souvenirs for myself, such as a couple of Polaroids, and a signed bottle. And it was lovely to later see people sharing the event on their own Instagram streams—thank you Minzy, Marcy and Iulia, among others.
Later we had an amazing dinner and Ashley and I ended the evening at the SF classic hotel, the Fairmont, for a little tête-a-tête nightcap.
Thank you so much to the people at ZGO Perfumery and all of those who attended for making me feel welcomed back to my birthplace. It really was a kind of homecoming. Maybe it sounds a little cheesy, but I left my heart in San Francisco.
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