The 100-year-old wood-panelled Lutyens building on Piccadilly, home to Assouline’s London store for a decade, is a three-storey ode to the luxury tomes and objets d’art that have become loved and admired by well-heeled aesthetes the world over, ever since the business was founded in Paris by Prosper and Martine Assouline in 1994.
In its first 31 years, Assouline Publishing has released hundreds and hundreds of titles, often in collaboration with luxury brands, fashion houses, artists and cultural institutions. Everyone and everything from Saint-Tropez to Patek Philippe, Roger Federer and the sport of golf has had the Assouline treatment – by being made the star of at least one (and sometimes several) opulent, oversized books that have become an interior design shibboleth for high-end hotels, superyachts and prime property developments from Mayfair to Monaco.
So far, so good. And, presumably, so lucrative. The books themselves vary in price. One on Saint-Tropez is priced at £85, while the tome on golf (Golf: The Impossible Collection) is a cool £1,195. The company does not publish or report financial information, but it’s also understood to make out handsomely from its deals with some of the brands that benefit from the exposure and credibility that come as a result of being the subject of an Assouline book.
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Now Assouline is setting its sights higher still, under a new boss. Prosper and Martine’s son, Alexandre, took over as president of the publishing house in January.
Under Alexandre, 32, Assouline has launched the ‘Library Collection’, a range of products that includes Cubist bookends, candles, paperweights and a leather backgammon set – the sort of things that might complement a library or lounge already adorned by Assouline books.
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In the spring, in a room accessed via a narrow spiral staircase at the brand’s flagship store in London, Maison Assouline, the quietly spoken Frenchman explained that he wanted to influence not just what we read, but also the space in which we read and even what we smell while we’re doing it. Assouline wants to ‘own the library space’, said Alexandre, sounding for a moment like a graduate of an American business school, which he is. (Columbia, 2016, since you ask.)
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The 14 library accessories, made from materials such as walnut wood, pebbled leather and brass, are the product of a collaboration with French designer Pierre Favresse, but Alexandre sketched elements of some of the items himself, including a pebble, whose shape is a recurring motif used in several of the pieces. The word ‘Assouline ’means ‘rock’ in the North African Berber language, and a number of the items in the collection have a connection to the family, which has roots in Morocco.
A nose for books
The new candles and diffuser fragrances were developed by Alexandre’s father, who drew inspiration from days spent in a public library, his head buried in books. He has aimed to capture bibliosmia (that pleasant, distinctive aroma of books) with five scents: paper, leather, cigar, wood and the intriguingly named ‘culture lounge – ’a crisp scent with top notes of spiced rum and sandalwood. ‘It was a fun project, ’ said Alexandre. ‘My dad literally spent days smelling manuscripts.’
[See also: London’s luxury cigar scene is under threat]
Another piece, a huge magnifying glass with a leatherbound handle, was influenced by Alexandre’s mother, who ‘lives with one in her hand’.
The Assouline family are close. ‘We eat lunch together every day, ’Alexandre told me. ‘We work together.’ At this point the PR sitting in on our interview chimed in: ‘They live together,’ she said, followed by an interjection from another person present, the globally renowned interior designer Kelly Hoppen. ‘Yes, ’said Hoppen. ‘But he does have locks on his doors.’
Apart from the bons mots, Hoppen was there to dispense wisdom on styling one’s library – something she has done on behalf of her impressive client base (which includes Victoria Beckham, Cameron Diaz and Boy George) many times before. The interior designer’s mother was a seller of antiquarian books, so she grew up surrounded by volumes, and books play an important role in her work; only days earlier she had ‘popped in’ to Maison Assouline to pick ‘about 40 books’ for a project.
‘Books are your best friends when styling,’ Hoppen said, adding that she ‘will certainly’ be using the objects from the new Assouline collection in her work. The bookends – both those that resemble vintage books and the distinct, Cubist-inspired ornaments – are her favourites.
Soon, Hoppen and her interior design colleagues may have more Assouline objets to choose from when they are commissioned to create a bibliophile’s paradise, or just want to lend an air of literary sophistication. The Library Collection is just the beginning; there’s talk of expanding into furniture, prints, more board games and perhaps cigars.
For his part, Alexandre is keen to paint the move as ‘organic, a natural progression’. But there is certainly a sense that, under its latest boss, this family business is beginning a new chapter.
This article first appeared in Spear’s Magazine Issue 96. Click here to subscribe
