Podcast Summary: The Grand Tourist Returns – The Assoulines

Podcast: The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein
Episode: The Grand Tourist Returns: The Assoulines
Date: October 8, 2025
Host: Dan Rubinstein
Guests: Prosper Assouline, Martine Assouline, Alexander Assouline

Overview

In this episode, Dan Rubinstein sits down with the Assouline family—Prosper, Martine, and their son Alexander—which founded the renowned art, travel, and lifestyle publishing house, Assouline. The conversation revisits the origin of the company, its evolution from an accidental passion project to an international luxury lifestyle brand, and the unique design philosophy that underpins their iconic books. The trio shares insights on style, curation, luxury, and how evolving tastes and new mediums like the metaverse shape their vision for the future.

Episode Highlights

The Genesis of Assouline Publishing

• Origins in Passion and Place

  • The first Assouline book immortalized the legendary La Colombe d'Or hotel in the South of France, born not from a business plan but love for the location and its people.
  • [03:50] Prosper Assouline:
    “It start with absolutely not the idea to create a publishing company. This is more important. And it start with love.”
  • Prosper emphasizes their outsider status in publishing:
    “We did not want to do a book…We didn’t know anybody. The industry zero. We didn’t know anything.” [05:19]

• Homemade Beginnings

  • The first book was “made in our kitchen in Paris” with Prosper shooting photos and Martine writing, aiming to capture the spirit rather than just the visuals.

• Unexpected Success

  • Despite initial resistance from the hotel, the book remained a perennial seller for nearly 30 years:
    “At the Colombo d’O r, they still selling in a hotel where they have only 25 rooms, around 1,000 books every year.” [06:03]

Family, History, and Heritage

• Growing Up Assouline

  • Alexander shares childhood anecdotes, including being schooled in style from a young age and assisting with boutique launches, stock rooms, and design.
    “At 10 years old, I started working with them…doing the stock room inventory and then designing or helping them to like set up corners and stores around the world.” [13:18]

• The Bergdorf Goodman Opportunity

  • A pivotal meeting with Bergdorf Goodman marked Assouline's early expansion into American retail and broadened their ambitions to become a luxury cultural brand.
    Martine recalls:
    “We started to need Alex, you know, in doing things, he help us. And that is the beginning of our afterboutiques.” [16:49]

Defining the Assouline Aesthetic

• Curation and Style Over Content

  • Prosper asserts that 80% of their books are about style, not just information:
    “People understand how to use a book. It’s not just to read. It’s going to open your mind…We are doing the editing and propose to the customer the best of the best about style.” [00:00, repeats at 19:28]

• Book as Lifestyle Objects

  • The Assoulines see their books as integral to interior spaces, serving not only as reading material but as visible objects of taste and identity.

From Passion to Business

• Revolutionizing Fashion & Art Book Publishing

  • Upon launching their first fashion collection in Paris (mid-'90s), they targeted affordability and accessibility for students, a stark contrast to the academic, expensive fare of the time.
    “It seems crazy, but 30 years ago it was no books [on fashion]…They were very expensive, super boring…We wanted to do for the student the best book ever, the best quality ever, with a very low price.” [20:45]

• Leveraging Personal Ties

  • Martine highlights how deep personal relationships with figures like Azzedine Alaïa and Karl Lagerfeld enabled unique access:
    “It was another time where the people, there was…more trust, more humanity in exchange.” [23:23]

On Style, Glamour, and Generational Perspectives

• Chicness Beyond Money

  • Prosper reiterates his belief that “chicness and glamour have nothing to do with money”, with the brand’s focus on quality and emotion over commercial ambition in its first decade. [25:01]

• Individuality and New Luxury

  • Alexander, representing the next generation, notes a shift in luxury:
    “My generation focuses much more on individuality, you know, showing off their personal taste through their own style…So in a sense being different is stylish.” [26:22]

The Editorial Decision Process

• Choosing Projects
  • Book curation is intuitive:
    “It’s obvious. We know immediately if it’s a solid book or not—an Assouline.” (Prosper) [28:21]
  • Alexander expands on commitment: every title is a “year plus” undertaking, requiring devotion and personal interest. [28:30]

The “Ultimate” Collection and Craft

• Ultimate Books—Handcrafted Luxury

  • Their “Ultimate Collection” is hand-made in Italy, with tactile and editorial excellence:
    “If you create a marketing product, it’s going to have a short life...What we wanted is to create the sensibility, the emotion of something—a book on the ultimate subject made just for you. So it’s made by hand.” (Prosper) [29:36]

• Notable Ultimate Editions

  • Iconic commissions for brands like Rolex and Chanel are described as “the best book ever made on this subject” by the brands themselves. [31:49]

Curating the Travel Canon & Breaking Boundaries

• Emergent Destinations

  • Martine and Prosper discuss branching beyond well-worn destinations (Italy, France, Spain) to places like Athens Riviera, Jaipur, and even the Moon and the metaverse.
    “We just did…a book on the moon in this travel series…what could be the ideal weekend in the moon.” (Prosper) [33:49]

• Looking to the Metaverse

  • Alexander is cautiously optimistic:
    “I’m excited about it…a new way of showcasing products, of telling our story.” [34:55]

• Persistence of Physical Books

  • Alexander stresses the continued demand for beautifully made, curated physical books over digital:
    “People tend to start focusing more on books…they like that tangible product, they like the tangible aspect and they like also that curation.” [35:36]

Upcoming Titles and Passions

• Most Anticipated Titles (Fall 2025)

  • Martine: Excited about the Virgil Abloh tribute—an emotional, collaborative project with writer Christian. [36:55]
  • Prosper: Loves the ongoing “style” collection, with Art Deco, Orientalism, and Pop Art as standouts—“an education of style with style.” [37:47, 38:39]
  • Alexander: The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Anniversary book—which he also personally connected with after receiving the watch as a gift.
    “So super excited for this book to…be happy.” [41:01]

• Forging New Categories

  • The family discusses oversized, “insane” editions (e.g. 70kg store book for Audemars Piguet).

The Future of Assouline

• From Publishing to Full Lifestyle

  • Alexander sees Assouline controlling the “entire room”—envisioning objects, accessories, candles, and potentially furniture.
    “Now that you know, I'm here on the strategy side…create a lifestyle brand...not about the bookcase, it's about the entire room.” [43:57]

• Maintaining Family Values

  • As Prosper notes, even as they scale globally, the business remains a family endeavor grounded in passion:
    “The emotion is still here…We continue to cook and we continue to make the bread in the same way with the smell and with the best quality.” [46:59]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Creating with Authenticity:
  “We wanted to show the shadows, the smell, something really what was interest to us, not to the people.” – Prosper [04:39]

• On Book Collectors:
  “Part of our books are almost closed 80% of the time, okay, so they are part of your apartment, they are part of your life, they are part of your lifestyle.” – Prosper [19:28]

• On the Publishing Marketplace:
  “There was no book on fashion at all at this time...it was a moment of delirium and freedom and different of today, which is more business, marketing.” – Martine [23:23]

• On Making Decisions:
  “It’s obvious. We know immediately if it’s a solid book or not—an Assouline.” – Prosper [28:21]

• On Future Directions:
  “To bring the book to life. So every project that we take is going to have way more time and effort put into it, distribution worldwide and so on. So yes, we have big plans for the next few years.” – Alexander [43:57]

Key Timestamps

• 00:00 The Assouline philosophy—editing style over pure content
• 03:50 The accidental beginnings at La Colombe d'Or
• 06:30 Martine’s motivation and initial skepticism
• 08:28 Alexander’s upbringing and the family's “ingredients”
• 13:18 Alex’s earliest publishing memories
• 14:32 The Bergdorf Goodman opportunity
• 20:45 Reinventing the art/fashion book category
• 25:01 Chicness and glamour are independent from money
• 29:36 The “Ultimate Collection”—making books with emotion, by hand
• 33:49 Not just real places—the Moon and Metaverse as travel books
• 36:55 Fall 2025 most anticipated titles from each family member
• 43:57 The strategic vision: From book publisher to lifestyle brand
• 46:59 Final reflections on maintaining family emotion and quality

Tone and Takeaways

True to their brand, the Assoulines convey a conversational, passionate tone—articulate, candid, and at times playfully French in their phrasing. While firmly rooted in luxury, style, and heritage, they emphasize emotional connection, storytelling, and crafting tangible, enduring objects of beauty. Their approach, shaped by intuition and personal relationships, continues to challenge and evolve the definition of culture, travel, and a life well-lived—one elegant book (or room) at a time.