Nolita has been a significant location for Aesop since 2010, when our first brick-and-mortar store in the United States, made from salvaged copies of The New York Times, opened in the neighbourhood. Thirteen years on, our in-house design team has reimagined this inaugural presence—just a few doors down from the original shopfront. Paying homage to the area’s diverse culture and architecture, with an emphasis on reusing existing materials, each element is familiar and yet transfigured.
In the early twentieth century, the site was most likely a Sicilian pasticceria. Following our customary attitude of respect for the locales we inhabit, and their histories, the brick walls and original ceiling of the shop are preserved; the imperfections of the building celebrated as testimony of its past lives. The centrepiece of the store is an expansive communal basin whose hard-wearing stone surface commemorates the quintessential marble countertops seen in the windows of bygone pastry shops, displaying fine confectionaries. The delicacies in this instance are our full range of formulations for the skin, hair, body and home—all of which can be explored at the basin with the assistance of dexterous staff.
