There is a certain clarity of Aesop visual identity. The Australian skincare brand’s approach to developing clean, bright products for hands and hair often translates into a warm, minimalistic yet bright design for its stores. Aesop’s boutiques—designed by several Snow cap, Sabine Marcelisand Joe Nagasaka—are always dressed in sober yet alluring earth tones, but also carefully developed reflective metals.
Inspired by the aluminum tubes used to test and produce Aesop formulations, it has just been launched In Apos The lamp also reflects this aesthetic. Now sold in a limited run of 500, the table lamp emits a soft glow of yellowish-brown light from its frosted glass crown. Blown in the Murano style, its formal and refractive qualities are not unlike those of a bottle of Aesop hand soap.
To unveil the product during this year’s Milan Design Week, longtime partner Aesop Rodney Eggleston—founder of Sydney architectural firm March Studio—They placed individual variations of the design in an undulating field of meticulously anchored, repurposed 50ml perfume bottles. Without any other lighting, the three fixtures—imagined in three variations of height—rise above the landscape and diffuse their light through the glittering elements below.
In the church of Santa Maria del Carmine, built in the 15th century, in the Baroque style, the installation “Factory of Light” creates an impressive juxtaposition. “The bottles act as mediators between the lamps and the space,” Eggleston said. In the courtyard outside, the exhibit is wrapped in a printed scaffolding structure. celebrating the European practice of covering these necessary exoskeletons in reproduced images — trompe l’oeil tarpaulins — of the new or renovated facades to come.
In a series of recessed alcoves, videos explain the actual manufacturing process involved: Aposē’s brass plinth was meticulously hand-forged in Germany. the hand-painted glass halo near Venice. The correlation between painstaking craftsmanship and hand care quickly becomes clear. A scent that diffuses between the two elements of the installation suggests a degree of cohesion. the lamp was fully assembled and transported from an industrial facility to someone’s home.
To learn more about the Aposē Table Lamp by Aesop, visit aesop.com.
Photo by Ludovic Balaicourtesy of Aesop.
