Almost four decades after its story began in a tiny Melbourne hair salon, Aesop has returned to its roots with a new signature store in Armadale.
The Australian-born luxury beauty brand has opened at 1013 High Street, just around the corner from Baldwin Street, where founder Dennis Paphitis opened the Emeis hair salon in 1987.
It is a homecoming that carries considerably more weight today.
What began as a small Melbourne operation has evolved into one of Australia’s most recognisable global beauty exports — and a brand that, in 2023, was acquired by L’Oréal from Natura &Co in a transaction valuing Aesop at an enterprise value of US$2.525 billion.
The acquisition was completed on 30 August 2023, bringing Aesop into the L’Oréal Luxe division alongside some of the beauty giant’s prestige brands.
Back to the beginning
Long before the multibillion-dollar valuation and international retail footprint, there was Emeis.
Paphitis opened the small Baldwin Street hair salon in 1987, where essential oils were blended with hair products and a distinctly minimalist approach began taking shape. The salon’s alabaster interiors and restrained aesthetic would become part of the design language associated with Aesop as it expanded internationally.
Nearly 40 years later, the new High Street location deliberately draws on that history.
The store’s design reinterprets elements of the original salon while continuing a philosophy that has become integral to Aesop’s retail identity: its stores are designed in response to their individual neighbourhoods rather than replicated according to a single global template.
Aesop Store Design Director Marianne Lardilleaux described the relocation as an opportunity to reinterpret the historic salon and the places from which some of the brand’s earliest ideas emerged.
Vintage furniture and carefully considered design elements further connect the new space to its Melbourne heritage, while the store offers Aesop’s skin, hair, body and home categories through its signature consultation-led retail experience.
From Melbourne to global luxury beauty
The contrast between Aesop’s beginnings and its position today makes the opening particularly significant.
By the time L’Oréal announced its agreement to acquire the business in April 2023, Aesop had grown into a global luxury beauty brand with around 400 points of sale across the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Asia and had generated US$537 million in sales in 2022.
Under L’Oréal, Aesop has become part of the group’s Luxe division, with the beauty giant identifying opportunities for further expansion, particularly in China and travel retail.
Yet rather than distancing itself from its Australian beginnings as its global footprint grows, its latest store places that history front and centre.
For beauty retailers, it is also an example of the evolving role of bricks-and-mortar retail. In an increasingly global and digital beauty market, the physical store can become more than a point of transaction — functioning as a vehicle for storytelling, heritage, service and brand experience.
For Aesop, few locations could tell that story better.
From a small Armadale salon in 1987 to a US$2.525 billion acquisition by the world’s largest beauty group, the brand has travelled a considerable distance — only to arrive back around the corner from where it started.
Aesop Armadale
1013 High Street
Armadale VIC 3143