MAISON IRFE
Founder
Olga Sorokina
Headquarters
New York, NY
@maisonirfe
Nearly 100 years after debuting in the Ritz Paris ballroom, Maison IRFE is back—not with couture gowns, but with perfumes inspired by complex women’s stories.
Originally founded in 1924 by Prince Felix Youssoupoff and Princess Irina Romanova — niece of Tsar Nicholas II — Maison IRFE was known for avant-garde tailoring and a pioneering fragrance line that targeted women by hair color and age. The house shuttered during World War II, disappearing from the fashion scene for decades.
In 2008, Olga Sorokina, a Belarusian model-turned-designer, acquired the dormant brand with a mission to rebuild it. Not as a retro revival, but as a sensory exploration of modern feminine characters through scent. “It isn’t just about fashion,” says Sorokina. “It is about a certain woman, a certain attitude — sophisticated, elegant, fearless.”
Sorokina has built a niche beauty house where scent and fashion are intertwined. The brand’s New York showroom sells
IRFE evening dresses, fine jewelry and resort wear alongside scents. Each perfume she creates begins with a dress — and the imagined woman who would wear it. “Marshmallow Musk is for the romantic,” she says. “Saffron Leather is for the businesswoman.”
"Patchouli Forever Worn? She’s moody, always changing." The perfumes are housed in sculptural vessels — some shaped like porcelain dolls inspired by Sorokina’s childhood — that take years to prototype and engineer.
Sales are estimated between $3 million and $5 million annually, with distribution through Neiman Marcus, select high-end boutiques, and direct-to-consumer channels. A minimalist Heritage line launching this fall will nod to IRFE’s early boutiques in Paris and London, with simple glass bottles and historically rooted scent stories.
Despite industry pressures, IRFE has taken a patient, independent path. Sorokina owns the brand outright, with no outside investors or equity deals. “I didn’t raise capital to sell the brand,” she says. “We don’t follow trends. We create characters.”
That positioning has resonated. Maison IRFE now has Japan on the horizon. “We just spoke with a Japanese distributor who’s been in business 40 years,” Sorokina says. “Our doll will resonate deeply there.”
Source: Originally published in the CEW 2025 Indie Beauty Report.