Aesop has officially made its debut in Chongqing, China, opening its inaugural store at Longfor Beicheng Paradise Walk with a literary twist: instead of products, shelves were lined with books as part of the brand’s annual Women’s Library campaign.
Rather than a conventional product-filled launch, Aesop‘s Chongqing debut featured walls of books and zero fanfare. Visitors arriving between March 23 and March 27 could reserve a visit and select a complimentary title by women authors to take home. Staff stamped each book’s title page with a custom seal and sprayed it with a woody fragrance, turning every copy into a keepsake. One visitor, Ms. Meng, said, “However, when Aesop opened, there was no grand opening ceremony. Instead, there was a whole wall of books.”
The 2026 campaign is titled “See the Mountains, See the Waters, See Her” — a phrase that nods to Chongqing‘s identity as China‘s “mountain city” and serves as a metaphor for women’s qualities: mountain-like humility, resilience and endurance, and water-like flexibility, intelligence, and healing. The curated 36-book list was shaped by nine female reading ambassadors from fields spanning media, academia, literature, art, science, and film. The Chongqing-specific selection includes titles such as Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper by British food writer Fuchsia Dunlop, a memoir rooted in her experience as a student at Sichuan University in the 1990s. Since the Women’s Library project began in 2021, Aesop has given away more than 115,000 books globally.
Aesop, founded in Melbourne by Dennis Paphitis, is widely known for design-led retail spaces that vary from city to city. According to Aesop, the new Chongqing store draws inspiration from the city’s mountainous terrain, incorporating the region’s terracotta ceramic craft to reflect the warmth of local earth and the natural layers of this unique city. Paphitis said, “We sell the same products globally, but they need to connect with local consumers according to the characteristics and culture of different places.” The brand’s approach is to work with what already exists and integrate into the core structure of the street, rather than simply placing logos onto a space.
Longfor Beicheng Paradise Walk completed a more than 600-day renovation in September 2025, introducing over 150 brands to the complex, with over 80 making their first appearance in Chongqing, and the share of first stores and flagship outlets rising by more than 50%. The Chongqing opening marks the first stop of the 2026 Women’s Library tour, with Wuhan to follow
