DC’s line-up of beauty stores just got a bit better with the arrival of Aesop, the Melbourne-based skin, hair, and body-care shop. The new storefront opened at Shaw’s The Shay development on September 9, becoming the region’s first brick-and-mortar installment of the brand and the thirty-first Aesop store overall. The brand is planning to follow their first DC storefront with a second DC location in Georgetown this fall.
The shop will stock the brand’s line of facial products—from serums to cleansers to shaving lotion—along with hair care, body care, and fragrances. As with every Aesop store, the interior design of the shop took into account the surrounding neighborhood. The Shaw location was designed by DC architect David Jameson and inspired by the jazz history of the neighborhood, as seen in figures like Duke Ellington, who grew up in Shaw.
With jazz music as the design muse, the store has been outfitted with brass shelving as a tribute to brass instruments, parchment paper—which is supposed to evoke thoughts of drum skins—and the amber-colored Aesop bottles, which are arranged with the intention of looking like musical notes.
Aesop is now open at 1924 Eighth St., NW #300.
Caroline Cunningham joined Washingtonian in 2014 after moving to the DC area from Cincinnati, where she interned and freelanced for Cincinnati Magazine and worked in content marketing. She currently resides in College Park.
