The Coty Factory is an Art Deco industrial building built in 1933 on the Great West Road for the French cosmetics company Coty, which established the plant to produce soaps, lipsticks, perfumes and creams locally after import duties made British manufacture more viable. It was designed by the well‑known architectural firm Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, whose work helped first define the ‘Golden Mile’ of modernist industrial architecture.
Characterised by its symmetrical white rendered façade, long horizontal metal‑framed windows (often wrapping around corners), and streamlined Art Deco detailing — including a continuous shaped parapet with decorative motifs — the building exemplified the “modernistic” inter‑war style where industrial structures also served as bold visual statements facing traffic and commuters.
After decades of manufacture (with some sources noting production continuing into the 1970s), the Coty building ceased factory operations and was later repurposed as a private clinic known as Syon Clinic, while preserving its Grade II‑listed Art Deco exterior as part of Brentford’s built heritage.
Today it stands as a reminder of the area’s early 20th‑century industrial boom and an era which kicked off companies invested in eye‑catching design as part of their workplaces along Golden Mile London.