Skincare products at Aesop's latest store in Paris are displayed on 427 steel caps that would normally be used in the city's plumbing network.
Designed by Parisian studio Ciguë, the shop is located in the winding streets of the historically aristocratic Le Marais district.
The wall-mounted dishes are filled with clear resin to form a flat surface and finished in varying degrees of blackened, rusted and stripped steel. Larger plumbing caps create basins in the polished concrete counters.
The cast iron spotlights, steel window frames and plant pots in the courtyard beyond were all custom-designed by Ciguë.
Have a look at Aesop's other stores here, including a kiosk in New York made of 1000 newspapers and another Paris store that's covered in 3500 pieces of wood.
The information that follows is from Aesop:
Aesop Le Marais
Aesop is pleased to announce the opening of our third Paris store in rue Vieille du Temple in Le Marais. This historical precinct has successively been home to religious orders, nobility and artisans, and was thankfully preserved from Haussmann’s overhaul of Paris.
Today, it displays beautiful buildings in narrow streets, and hosts many excellent cafés and museums. We would not have dreamt of better neighbours.
Aesop Le Marais is a light, minimalist room of polished concrete, with windows on the back wall allowing light to fill the room, and offering a glimpse of lush greenery in the courtyard.
The key element of the design is the integration of 427 small polished steel dishes into the walls, an acknowledgement of the industrial history of this part of Paris. The dishes are, in fact, the curved ‘lids’ which close the pipes used as plumbing throughout the city.
Utilising this material - which is cold to touch yet catches warm light, aesthetically pleasing yet functional - lends the space lyricism and invites our customers to explore and interact with our products.
As always, the design serves to showcase Aesop’s full range of superb skin, hair and body products.
64, rue Vieille du Temple 75003 Paris