Promotion: skincare and fragrance brand Aesop has transformed its stores around the world into temporary perfumeries, using suspended paper and books to reference the fables behind its fragrances.
The Fragrant Fables campaign spanned more than 15 locations across 10 countries, showcasing Aesop's collection of 12 perfumes, each developed around the idea of connecting fragrance with storytelling.
As part of the campaign, Aesop created an exhibition at Tokyo National Museum's Hyokeikan, working with Japanese papermaker Hiroko Tanino and her studio Tesuki Washi Tanino to create bespoke washi paper installations.
Based in a valley beside the Tokigawa River, the studio produces handmade washi paper from natural materials such as paper mulberry. Tanino is one of 11 artisans officially certified in traditional handmade papermaking in Japan.
For the exhibition, Tanino's studio produced three different finishes of washi, each incorporating botanical ingredients or aromatic characteristics associated with one of the featured fragrances.
The washi was formed into large hanging sheets, labyrinth-like structures and cascading shapes, which were suspended between the museum's marble columns and set against its geometric mosaic floors.
Elsewhere, custom-made sheets were folded into scroll-like forms that undulated within timber frames.
The Tokyo exhibition focused on three fragrances, separating their individual olfactory elements so visitors could smell the ingredients in isolation.
One display explored Aesop's newest fragrance Unforeseen Aer, using a large scroll made from bespoke washi that was held in a simple timber frame and surrounded by draped sheets of paper.
Nutmeg, one of the fragrance's key ingredients, was incorporated directly into the paper to give its surface a textured finish. The experience concluded in a library displaying the written fables.
The wider Fragrant Fables campaign translated the fragrances and their ingredients into physical displays, using materials, objects and photography associated with each scent alongside the perfumes themselves.
Each scent was given a fable-like name, with a story inspired by its ingredients printed on packaging designed to resemble the spines of books.
The fragrances were presented through three stages, starting with its ingredients in their raw form, followed by an interpretation of how those ingredients might smell in nature and finally the finished perfume.
Across the locations, hundreds of printed paper sheets were suspended from ceilings, with some curled into loose, wave-like forms and others arranged in dense layers.
Large scrolls displayed the fables as oversized, poem-like texts within the spaces, while stacks of white paper were used as plinths for the signature amber perfume bottles.
In New York, live readings of the Fragrant Fables accompanied the installation, bringing the written stories into the spaces alongside the fragrance displays.
A separate exhibition in Taiwan featured a wooden bookcase displaying books alongside isolated fragrance ingredients, while materials were presented in vessels around the installation.
While the individual settings differ, paper, books, raw ingredients and amber bottles recurred throughout the campaign.
Aesop was established in Melbourne in 1987 and regularly works with local artisans, architects and designers on its stores and installations.
Other Aesop projects featured on Dezeen include its Madrid store where four original cast-iron columns were retained as part of the interior, as well as its Knightsbridge store in London, which features a floor-to-ceiling installation made from gridded bars of cream-coloured soap.
Earlier this year, the brand released its Aposē lamps with The Factory of Light installation at Milan design week, to mark the launch of its first-ever lighting designs.
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