Stéle a modern-day temple for perfume

Nothing beats smelling stuff IRL, especially in a beautiful setting

I’ve written about my first major perfume purchase (Blocki’s For Walks) and the moment I started to become a fraghead at Tiger Lily in San Francisco (now Ministry of Scent) a few times. Over a decade later my favorite way to discover new fragrances and brands is still to walk into a well curated shop where the owners are equally as obsessed and much more knowledgeable about fragrance than I am. Of all the perfume boutiques I have been to and loved for different reasons, none compares to Stéle in Brooklyn, NY.

Like most things in the fragrance world, I first heard about Stéle through

Emma Vernon

. She posted a reel about discovering this shop shortly after they opened this past April. Then I started to see and hear about Stéle all over the place and I knew I had to make a special trip there the next time I was in New York.

Stéle was opened by business and life partners Jake and Matt Belanger in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They actually didn’t set out to open a perfume shop, their original concept was to create a space where interior designers and photo shoot editors could find objects for styling. But while they were stocking the space they discovered Ormaie candles and then their perfumes, were blown away, and from there they got pulled into the rabbit hole of fragrance. So much so that their original concept morphed into a perfume boutique unlike any I have visited. It feels like a church for fragrance, no doubt due to all of the gorgeous stone and marble integrated into the walls and displays. Jake is a stone mason who created many of the custom marble pieces in the shop. And both Matt and Jake clearly have a talent for styling. So much so that they won’t carry a brand if the aesthetic of the bottle doesn’t feel like the right fit for Stéle.

I walked into Stéle on a Friday afternoon, my last day before heading back to San Francisco, and was immediately enamored. Jake was working that day and after not seeing Clue on the shelves anywhere I asked him about it. I was dying to smell this one in person and knew they carried it. He told me they were sold out and were waiting on a restock, the hold up was an order of their gorgeous bottle tops. But he graciously pulled out the bottles for me and let me sniff them. The Point was my favorite of the three above, all salty sea and cozy and warm. I got the hype for this line after sniffing them.

Jake was such a delight to hang out with, he showed me a bunch of collections and brands I had never heard of before. I also got to smell many brands I had seen online and was curious about. The range they carry is really unique and so well curated. Jake was an encyclopedia of knowledge about every one of them. He was also just really nice to talk to, totally honest when I asked his opinion, and had zero pretense. I could have spent hours in there hanging out with him. And I can only imagine how many newbies to fragrance he’s welcomed into this world with his easy demeanor and friendliness.

Both Matt and Jake have said in interviews that they like when people talk less about notes and more about how something makes you feel, and what it conjures up for you. Which really gets to the heart of what I think a lot of us love about fragrance in the first place. It’s not about memorizing notes but paying attention to how a scent sparks things in your body when you sniff it. That should be your divining rod when looking for a scent.

I also loved hearing Jake tell me about how so many of the collections really reflected the person behind them - many perfumers have visited Stele since they opened, often doing events in the sweet space, so Jake has been able to meet the people behind the fragrances. It was really cool to hear him tell me how he saw their personalities manifested in their collections, it was something I had never really thought about before. With indie perfume and more niche fragrance houses, they aren’t always trying to make scents that will appeal to the masses and they have the freedom to get weird and project themselves onto their creations.

I wanted to buy so many things and I’m not sure I made the right choice with where I landed tbh. I left with a bottle of Garden Song by Racyne and a bottle of Ortigia Sicilia Zagara I felt obligated to buy this one as it’s a Sicilian house whose packaging spoke to my New Jersey Italian heart. I also got a discovery set by Hima Jomo and some samples from Abel. I am so behind on sampling! But will share my thoughts on all of these in a future post.

If you can’t make it to Stéle you can shop their amazing collection online. And you should listen to these interviews with them on Perfume Room and Smell Ya Later.

Thanks for welcoming me into your stunning space Jake! I can’t wait to visit again.