Designing With Scent | August & Piers Campbell, Founders of AUGUST&PIERS

Continuing our exploration of 'Designing for the Senses’ we’re focusing on scent and its essential role in design, recognising smell as a fundamental sense that shapes the experience of a space. As the fragrance market continues to grow, we turned to one of our favourite brands, AUGUST&PIERS, to learn more about their personal experiences building the brand and their approach to designing fragrance.

What was it that sparked the inspiration behind AUGUST&PIERS?

The idea for AUGUST&PIERS began about a year before the pandemic. Both brothers shared a lifelong passion for design and a love of fragrance. Fusing these two worlds led to the concept of creating a collection of scented candles that felt both personal and considered.

They would meet weekly to sketch ideas and test concepts. In such a saturated market, they knew they needed a clear point of difference – a reason to exist – something August understood deeply from his background in advertising.

Rather than use off-the-shelf vessels, they wanted every element to feel bespoke. After exploring materials like glass and aluminium, they landed on ceramic – rarely used in candle design at the time, yet offering warmth, tactility, and more achievable sampling costs.

Their competitor analysis revealed that most brands named products after scent notes, locations, or abstract memories. Wanting to stand apart, they developed the idea of celebrating character and individuality through scent. Candles have always been the perfect gift or self-gift, and linking each fragrance to a personality felt both original and meaningful. This idea gave birth to their first four scent characters: Saint, Socialite, Libertine, and Eccentric.

AUGUST&PIERS officially launched on 4 November 2020, the same day the UK entered its second lockdown.

As a wonderful sibling duo, there must be both pros and cons to working together as business partners and brothers. What do you enjoy the most about working together?

Trust is what makes working together work so well. We each have our own roles within the business: Piers oversees the ever-demanding operations, wholesale, and distribution, while I lead on marketing and brand training. We then come together for product development.

Like any partnership, we clash from time to time, but it’s rare – and as brothers, we instinctively know when to give each other space and move forward. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

What were you both doing before you launched AUGUST&PIERS?

August studied Graphic & Media Design at Central Saint Martins, specialising in Advertising and Art Direction. After graduating in 2014, he joined creative teams at leading London agencies before landing roles at global firms VCCP and McCann London.

Piers studied Product Design at London South Bank University and went on to create luxury lighting installations and product collections for high-end residential and hospitality projects.

You launched in 2020, which must have had its highs and lows. What is one of your proudest moments or achievements with the brand so far?

Lockdown and the pandemic were such an awful time for so many people, but for us it became an unexpectedly positive chapter – and ultimately the perfect moment to launch AUGUST&PIERS. Before the pandemic, we were both renting in central London, but we decided to move back to our family home in Surrey. That made it much easier to work on AUGUST&PIERS consistently in the evenings and at weekends, and it also gave us the space we needed to store samples.

When we launched, everyone was at home – press, influencers, and potential customers – which made it an ideal time to introduce a product for the home. Things grew quickly from there.

One of our proudest early moments was being discovered by Netflix within the first few months. That opportunity led us to create two bespoke candles for them: STAR and NOMAD.

‍Where do you go for some R&R, and what fragrance do you associate with unwinding?

June to August is usually our quieter period, so we try to travel as much as possible then – once September arrives, things are full-on until Christmas. We both love going to Ibiza for some R&R; it’s a real happy place for us. We’re also avid skiers, so escaping to the Alps in winter is always a highlight. It forces you to switch off from your phone and laptop while staying active at the same time.

For me, Libertine has always been a favourite from our collection. I associate its woody, smoky notes with unwinding at home.

Rejecting the conventional and the overly commercial, AUGUST&PIERS champions a thoughtful, expressive, and modern approach to scent. Each fragrance is a portrait of personality, celebrating ‘quirks, individuality, and unique differences.'

There is such a wonderful personality behind your brand. How do you keep that alive through your brand storytelling?

Thank you! Maintaining our brand personality through storytelling is central to everything we do. For us, every product or campaign begins with a clear idea of what we want to communicate – the emotion, the atmosphere, the world we’re inviting someone into. It’s not the easiest route, but it’s the one that keeps the brand honest, distinctive, and undeniably AUGUST&PIERS.

‍What sets AUGUST&PIERS apart from other contemporary fragrance houses?

What sets AUGUST&PIERS apart from other brands is that it’s led by designers. We strive to create objects and fragrances that feel truly unique – pieces with character, intention, and a point of view. Our aim is always to do things differently

You’ve worked on some exciting campaigns, including a bespoke fragrance for Heathrow VIP and a pop-up at Selfridges. How do these collaborations reflect and extend your brand ethos?

Our brand ethos is simple: there is only one you. Whether we’re creating a bespoke fragrance for the UK’s most exclusive airport lounge, curating a pop-up experience, or launching a new product, we want people to feel they’re investing in something as unique as they are.

As proud members of Positive Luxury, we are always keen to hear about how others approach sustainability. What advances have you been making in this area?

Our packaging is fully FSC-certified, and we brief our perfumers to work with natural materials sourced as sustainably as possible. We also made a conscious choice to design a refillable diffuser – a small but meaningful step toward creating objects that last.

‍How do you see fragrance evolving within the wider world of scent?

More brands are waking up to the power of scent as a brandable device – it’s one of the first things people notice when they enter a space, and it engages one of our most instinctive senses. With several scent-branding projects already under our belt, including The Windsor by Heathrow, we’re now looking ahead to 2026 with plans to create more bespoke fragrances for brands who want to make a lasting, sensory impression.

AUGUST AND PIERS CAMPBELL | AUGUST&PIERS

W: AUGUST&PIERS

IG: @augustpiers

P: @AugustPiers

E: info@augustpiers.com