From the time it launched in 1987, Aesop quickly distinguished itself from other skincare brands with its refined aesthetic and signature scents that could entice just about anyone through the doors of its impeccably designed stores. It is somewhat of a surprise than that a brand that places such a high premium on interiors and fragrance has never launched a candle, that is, until now.
This week, Aesop debuts three candles with scents crafted by the brand’s longtime fragrance collaborator, Barnabé Fillion. Inspired by the cosmos, the candles are named after three ancient astronomers – Aganice, the first female astronomer of Ancient Greece, Callippus, one of the foremost astronomers of antiquity, and Ptolemy, a Greek-Egyptian astronomer whose writings greatly influenced medieval cosmology.
The scents themselves are similarly out of this world. In the words of Fillion, who designed the candle fragrances as well as Aesop’s most recent eau de parfumes: ‘When selecting scents for the home, they have to be adapted to the size of the space, its volume, its purpose – a corridor or a living room. But the choice of scents will be influenced more by the time of day than by the space in which they are diffused.’
‘Some will prefer to evoke during the day, a landscape of spicy flowers, like the Aganice candle, and in the evening, that of a Japanese forest, like the Ptolemy candle. Others will be more sensitive to the green notes of Vetiver and Shiso from the Callippus candle, in their interior during autumn.’
To celebrate the launch, Aesop enlisted the artistry of Paris-based digital animator Mattis Dovier. Guests were invited to explore a digital universe created by Dovier in his signature pixilated aesthetic that evokes a Dürer engraving if was reformatted on an IBM monitor. The end result is something that, like Aesop, is equal parts classic and cool. §
