Elorea Redefines Luxury from an Asian Perspective

When Wonny Lee and Su min Park first launched Elorea earlier this year, the married co-founders wanted to make a space for their Korean heritage in the Western-dominated fragrance industry. "Everything we do, it's meant to be incredibly intentional about sharing bits and pieces about the culture and the history," says Lee. "Not only do we incorporate it within the storytelling and the brand, but we also incorporate it in the products. For our fragrances, at least one key ingredient in each of our perfumes is sourced from the peninsula," as seen in these photographs.

Elorea, a portmanteau of "elements" and "Korea," debuted with its Elements collection of four genderless fragrances inspired by the four trigrams of the Korean national flag (heaven, earth, fire, and water). Now, it's expanding into candles. "We had a lot of people asking for them," says Park, "and we wanted to introduce another product that is in line with the Elements collection, so it seemed like a natural progression." With a soy and coconut base, the candles offer the same four scents and come in a luxurious matte black glass container with a gold interior that ties into the æsthetic of the perfume bottles and brings a warm glow to any room when lit.

Lee and Park have grand ambitions for the evolution of Elorea. Despite the immediate success of their fragrance collection, Lee says they don't want to be shoehorned into being known simply a fragrance brand. With plans to roll out bath products later this year and other surprise projects in development, Lee says he envisions the future of Elorea as a Korean powerhouse on par with European brands like Louis Vuitton or Christian Dior. "I would love Elorea to be the first Korean luxury house," says Lee, pointing to the breadth of overwhelmingly Euro-centric luxury houses that currently dominate the market. "I believe that Asia's first luxury groups or houses are being formed today. From a societal point of view, we have finally established that the West isn't all that's luxurious. We can create high-quality products as well and we can stand side-by-side in this space. I hope we're not the first or the last one. I think there are amazing brands out there that are going to start to progress and they're going to be something that represents the Asian community."

Elorea candles and fragrances are available now at Elorea.com.