Aesop
Good products speak for themselves.
Aesop was founded in 1987 by Dennis Paphitis in his Melbourne hair salon, where he began blending essential oils into haircare products with the conviction that effective formulas need no embellishment or manufactured mythology. Named after the Greek storyteller in deliberate mockery of the cosmetics industry's habitual puffery, the brand grew into one of the world's most design-conscious luxury skincare houses before being acquired by L'Oréal in 2023. Its fragrance line, developed in ongoing collaboration with French perfumer Barnabé Fillion, brings the same rigorously anti-trend philosophy to scent: compositions are genderless, intellectually conceived, and formulated for longevity on skin rather than initial projection. Barnabé Fillion, who experiences synæsthesia, approaches fragrance through textures and interstitial spaces, producing works like Hwyl, Rozu, and the Othertopias collection that resist easy categorisation. Aesop's flagship stores, each uniquely designed for its local context, remain some of the most considered retail environments in any luxury category.
DNA over time
Each column is an era. Each colored band shows that family’s share of accord weight across every perfume the house released in that window. Bigger band = the house leaned harder on that family.
