Aesop Brings Its Queer Library Back to the UK, Now With a Third London Space
The sixth annual edition centers a helpline’s four decades of call logs.
Summary
Aesop Soho clears its shelves entirely for its sixth annual Queer Library, joined this year by a concurrent Reading Room at Aesop Spitalfields
The 2026 edition, titled "Body of Work," centers The Log Books, a collection built from Switchboard's archived call records
Visitors can take home a complimentary book at each location with no purchase required, while stocks last
Aesop is bringing its sixth annual Queer Library to London‘s Soho from July 3 to 5, expanding the initiative this year with a concurrent Reading Room at Aesop Spitalfields and a follow-up Reading Room at Aesop Brighton from July 31 to August 2. The 2026 edition, titled “Body of Work,” puts queer literary voices at the center of the brand’s retail spaces rather than treating them as a seasonal footnote.
Aesop’s relationship with the written word runs deeper than a marketing hook. The brand takes its name from the ancient Greek fabulist, a nod to storytelling that has shaped its identity since its 1987 founding in Melbourne. That literary foundation gives the Queer Library a certain internal logic: a beauty brand named after a master storyteller using its stores to platform voices that publishing and mainstream culture have historically pushed to the margins.
This year’s focus on Switchboard sharpens that mission considerably. The UK’s national LGBTQIA+ support line has operated as a volunteer-led helpline since 1974 and has supported four million people over five decades. The Library’s featured title, The Log Books, pulls directly from that history, built by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith from dozens of call logs discovered in a crawlspace at Switchboard’s offices and spanning four decades of conversations. The authors describe the result as a living, breathing diary of queer life across the country and across time, a description that reframes what a beauty retailer’s in-store activation can hold. As Walker and Zmith put it, the project let a new generation finally understand their elders’ stories, “we knew them, and finally we could hold each other against the tides of time.”
The format keeps the emphasis on access over commerce. At Aesop Soho, product shelves make way entirely for books during the Library’s run, while Spitalfields and Brighton dedicate in-store space to the full title selection. Every visitor across all three locations can select a complimentary book to take home, no purchase necessary, while stocks last. The Aesop Foundation is extending that support beyond the shelf this year, donating to both Switchboard and Not a Phase, a nationwide charity supporting the trans+ community, tying the activation’s cultural gesture to direct financial backing.
The Aesop Queer Library runs at Aesop Soho until July 5, with a concurrent Reading Room at Aesop Spitalfields the same weekend, followed by a Reading Room at Aesop Brighton from July 31 to August 2.
Aesop Queer Library, Soho
Aesop Soho, 41 Lexington Street
London W1F 9AJAesop Queer Reading Room, Spitalfields
Aesop Spitalfields, 75-77 Brushfield Street
London E1 6AAAesop Queer Reading Room, Brighton
104-105 Gloucester Road, Brighton and Hove
Brighton BN1 4AP
