At Milan Design Week, where the pursuit of the Instagrammable moment is often the default, Aesop has perfected the quieter, more considered approach. This year, the brand marks its first move into lighting with Aposē, a trio of lamps unveiled through an installation titled The Factory of Light, set within the 15th-century church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Brera, one of Milan’s most culturally dense districts.
Designed by Australian architect Rodney Eggleston of March Studio, a long-time collaborator of the brand, the installation is spread across the church’s cloisters and sacristy, spaces typically reserved for preparation and retreat rather than public display. It unfolds gradually. There is no single focal point. Instead, the experience is structured as a sequence of environments that encourage a slower pace, beginning with a gesture that will feel familiar to anyone who has visited an Aesop store. At the entrance, a basin invites visitors to wash their hands before moving further inside.
It is a small moment, but a telling one. Aesop has always treated the act of cleansing as something closer to ritual than routine. From there, a scaffolded structure forms the core of the installation. Wrapped in translucent sheeting printed with fragments of Milanese architecture, it presents a softened and fragmented version of the surrounding city. Facades and columns appear layered and partially obscured, creating a sense that the installation sits somewhere between interior and exterior.
“Salone del Mobile is an ideal setting for us to share our unique perspective on light and how it fits within our wider design philosophy,” explains Garance Delaye, Aesop Brand President. “This year’s theme explores how our approach to spaces, objects and even formulations has been guided by an understanding of how to best harness light and the shadows it may cast.”
The setting sharpens the impression of Aesop’s stores, which are often described as immersive, even meditative. There is a careful choreography to how visitors move through the space, guided without it ever feeling overt, with hosts dressed in custom uniforms that quietly reinforce the brand’s considered, almost monastic aesthetic. Not quite reverent, but certainly considered.
As visitors move through the structure, the focus shifts towards the process.
Three of the installation’s four rooms are dedicated to the making of the lamps, each tracing a different stage of production. Brass is shaped under heat in northern Italy, glass is blown by artisans in Veneto, and components are cast and assembled through a network of long-established workshops across Europe. The emphasis is on the human hand as much as the finished object.
The sequence is loosely organised around the senses. In one room, the rhythmic rotation of mechanical lathes forms the lamp’s thin brass shell. In another, molten glass is shaped by breath into a softly diffused crown. Elsewhere, molten brass is poured into sand moulds in a German foundry, retaining the rough texture of its making. The final space brings these elements together, where the lamp is assembled and, ultimately, switched on.
The installation reaches its most resolved moment in the sacristy. Here, the light drops and the space becomes more contained. An undulating platform composed of more than 10,000 reclaimed amber bottles stretches from one end of the room to the other, catching and refracting light against the church’s carved wooden interiors. The effect is luminous but controlled.
It is here that Aposē is finally introduced. Produced in collaboration with Flos and released in a limited edition of 500, the lamps are displayed atop this amber surface, their glow amplified by the surrounding glass. Designed by Aesop’s in-house team, they reinterpret the proportions of the brand’s familiar aluminium product tubes, translating them into sculptural objects that combine hand-cast brass with softly diffused glass.
“To design this first lighting fixture, Aesop’s in-house architects drew on a core principle: to reinterpret something that normally goes unnoticed,” the brand explains. “They began with an aluminium tube—the very kind used to house some of the brand’s formulations. This form, chopped through and scaled up, stands apart through its unconventional proportions: a diameter of 50 centimetres for a height of just 36 centimetres—a confident gesture, giving Aposē a singular yet familiar presence.”
The resulting light is warm and even, intended for domestic environments rather than dramatic display. For Aesop, the project is as much about philosophy as it is about product. As Brand President Garance Delaye puts it, light is approached “with scientific rigour and a poetic sensibility.” That sensibility is visible throughout the installation, from the amber glow of the lamps to the refracted light cast by the surrounding bottles, an extension of the brand’s long-standing use of tinted glass to both protect and subtly shape its formulations.
There is, of course, a product at the centre of all this, but it doesn’t behave like one. The lamps are present, but they do not dominate. Instead, they sit within a broader exploration of how light is produced and experienced.
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