Al-Jawad Pike wraps Aesop's Harrods counter in Italian terracotta

London studio Al-Jawad Pike has overhauled skincare brand Aesop's counter inside Harrods, centring the redesign on a terracotta-tiled structure built to feel like a piece of architecture rather than a retail fixture.

Aesop has held a counter in the department store for more than a decade. For the revamp, Al-Jawad Pike — a long-term Aesop collaborator — set out to push the format beyond the conventional beauty counter.

"We were interested in giving the counter the qualities of a miniature building, with suggestions of apertures, openings and floor levels: something designed with the architectural ambition of a building but the care of a cabinet," Al-Jawad Pike co-founder Jessam Al-Jawad told Dezeen.

What does the terracotta reference?

The carved alcoves of the counter are a deliberate nod to older building traditions. "Through carved alcoves we also wanted to recall the architecture of ancient Persia – the highly literate civilisation that developed liquid perfumery," Al-Jawad said.

The material choice carries a second reference. Italian terracotta tiles clad the counter, selected both for their scent-holding capacity and for their visual kinship with Harrods' recognisable red brick facade.

"We chose glazed terracotta early on in the process because of its connection to traditional fragrance production, but also because of its strong association with Harrods' iconic facade," Al-Jawad explained.

How do customers smell the fragrances?

The counter carries what Aesop describes as an "olfactory sculpture" — an alchemist-style apparatus of glass vessels and copper. Glass vessels filled with fragrances hang from a copper stand, fitted with copper cones that let visitors experience the different scents.

"The olfactory sculpture is something that Aesop has been independently developing in different forms across a number of their projects," the studio said. "Our take on this was to create a delicate but organised structure of copper piping and blown glass, through which fragrance-infused air is pushed to scent funnels for customers to interact with."

The surrounding palette works with the monolithic counter. Brushed copper provides a tactile contrast, chosen for reasons both sensory and historical.

"The colour palette was chosen in collaboration with the team at Aesop for its intensity and richness, which we felt resonated with the olfactory experience of fragrance," Al-Jawad said. "We paired this with matte, brushed copper because of its connection to fragrance creation and distillation."

Where does this sit in Aesop's design programme?

The Harrods project continues a busy year of design-led moves by the brand. Earlier in 2026, Aesop launched its first lighting collection, the Aposē lamps, presented with The Factory of Light installation at Milan design week. Previous Aesop stores featured on Dezeen include a Barcelona shop by Mesura, which won the 2024 Dezeen Award for best interior.

The Harrods counter signals where Aesop's retail design is heading: fixtures that behave like buildings, and materials chosen for what they hold and recall — scent, brick, and the distillery traditions of copper.