Aesop launches Aposē lamps with The Factory of Light installation at Milan design week
Skincare brand Aesop has unveiled The Factory of Light installation, where scaffolding printed with iconic Milanese buildings serves as the backdrop for the launch of its first-ever lighting designs.
Described as looking like "an imaginative city of Milan" by Aesop's director of global retail design, Marianne Lardilleux, the space features four rooms dedicated to light at its centre.
It is located in Brera's Chiesa del Carmine, a 15th-century church in central Milan where the brand also held an exhibition last year.
"This cloister fits our brand," Lardilleux told Dezeen.
"This year, we wanted to speak about something that really matters to us, which is light. Light really is part of our philosophy – we illuminate every skin."
This led to the decision to create Aposē, Aesop's first lighting designs, which come in the shape of a table lamp, a pendant and a floor lamp.
"We thought 'let's make this object that our customer, our visitor, can bring to their home', so they can bring our vision of the light to their home," Lardilleux said.
The three lamps were informed by the shape of Aesop's most famous product: the hand balm tube, which was the starting point for the design.
"To design a lamp is a bit different to designing a space," Lardilleux said. "Very simply, we just thought about the design of our most famous product, which is the hand balm tube, and we've played around with it, distorting it and transforming it to get to this shape."
The sculptural Aposē lamps, which were made from glass and brass and produced in Italy and Germany with lighting brand Flos, come in a limited edition of 500 and will be on pre-sale during Milan design week.
At The Factory of Light installation, they are displayed on a table made from 16,000 Aesop glass fragrance bottles, creating "a luminous effect, with the brown glass and the lamp on top", Lardilleux continued.
Three of the installation's four rooms are dedicated to the making of the lamps, with the fourth showing the final product.
"It's very important to us that we show all the work being done to get this lamp made," Ladrilleux said.
The installation itself was designed by Australian architect Rodney Eggleston of March Studio, who has worked with Aesop on many of the brand's Australian stores.
"We invited him to come to Milan to be inspired, and he was very animated about all the scaffolding and hoardings he could see around him – I don't think he has all these hoardings in Melbourne," Ladrilleux said.
"He was very excited about it and impressed by the print that let you see the true building that was being renovated behind," she continued.
"So we contacted a hoarding installer, and they had all these fabrics on the side with the print of these incredible buildings of Milan."
The decision to launch the lights with a Milan design week installation came naturally to Aesop, partly due to the popularity of last year's installation.
"Our installation last year was quite well received, we got 11,000 customers, and we weren't expecting that at all, so we thought there's an interest, definitely," Ladrilleux explained.
"I just hope this installation will inspire people and that they will think about light differently," she concluded.
Also on show during Milan design week are human-sized candelabras by Muller van Severen and a new collectible design brand by Stefan Scholter.
We rounded up twenty-four unmissable installations at Milan design week 2026.
The photography is by Ludovic Balay.
The Factory of Light will be on show from 21 to 26 April 2026 at Chiesa del Carmine, Piazza del Carmine 2, Milan. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.
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