Aesop Fukuoka

Conceived as a reflection of a traditional residence, the store features areas akin to a garden and a house, the former entered from the street through a vast rust-iron gate façade. As the entranceway unfolds and the interior emerges, the warm white walls and ceilings of the house appear, shrouded in soft cloth, in contrast to the hard shell of the exterior—a disparity designed to balance both samurai battle armour and domestic dress.

On the main shopfloor, formulations are lined up on black inset shelves, as an army of amber glass waiting to be deployed. Slicing through this sense of order is a sleek silver block: the blade of a sword amplified and abstracted, it contains the central sink, styled after a ‘Chozu’ water feature—traditionally used to purify hands before worship. Other material choices echo ideas core to the codes once observed in the castle up above: austerity is reflected in the dull dark gateway; purity in the lightlinen walls. 

In the garden space lies a miniature tea house, itself a microcosm of the entire store design. Clad in the same rusting metallic skin as the store’s frontage, secreted within is a welcoming and warming room of cypress wood. Inside is a Fragrance Library, which offers an intimate olfactory exploration of Aesop’s unconventional aromas.