In ELLE.com’s monthly series Office Hours, we ask people in powerful positions to take us through their first jobs, worst jobs, and everything in between. This month, we spoke to Martine Assouline, the co-founder of the luxury book publisher Assouline, which is marking its 30th anniversary this year. After working in public relations for companies like Rochas, she started Assouline with her husband, Prosper Assouline; Martine used her experience to handle editorial direction, while Prosper transitioned from advertising to overseeing creative. They began with the coffee table book La Colombe d’Or, focused on their favorite French restaurant-turned-hotel. Assouline has now printed over 2,000 fashion, art, and travel books; there are 18 stores, with more in the works; and a podcast is on its way. The company will celebrate its anniversary at legendary Paris restaurant Maxim’s this week. Below, Martine discusses running a company with her husband, her guiding principles, and how Leonardo DiCaprio made her realize she’d made it.
My first job
It was with a girl called Carole Braque. She was in professional PR and extremely ambitious, and she was trying to find somebody to create an agency. She told me, “Let’s do it together.” I learned very quickly.
What inspired Assouline
Starting a publishing house was a matter of love. Prosper at that time was running a young creative agency, the most wanted in Paris. Everybody was doing advertising with him. [But] he was coming home with great ideas that were not understood. One day I told him, “You know what we’re going to do? We love books. We are going to do a small publishing house; we’re going to start to create books.”
On working with my husband
The most important [thing] is we have the same values in life, and we go in the same direction. We are creative, both of us, but in very different ways. He’s somebody who can come with a fantastic idea about the cover, saying, “I have the book.”
It’s always, as you can imagine, difficult to have a business. A family business is a little bit complicated; it’s not easy every day, but it’s very satisfactory, because there is a trust. It’s like a jewel. Our direction is the same, and we love to create. To find new things is our treasure.
The skills I bring to a book
When I create a book, I try to be very alone. I’m somebody very curious. I’ve [lived] around the world. That helps me, because I know many authors, exhibitors, artists. When I have the text, I have the images, I feel completely confident.
How my work competes with the internet for attention
I’m really interested in what’s happened in the world culturally, less and less politically. I find whatever inspiration I need to find on the internet, but the internet is not satisfying. It gives you an image or a name to jump on to another [thing]. A book is something so completely different. It’s private. When you do a book, you are giving of yourself.
My favorite Assouline book
New York by New York. I spent years on it, because I had this idea. Nobody around me was [getting] that. I still look at that book with the same interest years after. Today I’m finishing Paris by Paris. You can do these kinds of books when you know a lot, and you’re curious enough.
How I’ve seen the fashion industry evolve
I’m not so much interested in fashion, more by what’s happened in this business. I had the chance to live in a moment which was extraordinary in creativity, in fashion and style; at that time, the big luxury fashion companies had less marketing and fewer lawyers embedded [which made things freer]. It was a fantastic period of real creativity. The photographers, the shows, the models, everybody was giving the most.
My proudest moments
One day in a magazine, there was a photo of Leonardo DiCaprio trying to escape from photographers in the street with a big shopping bag from Assouline. I said, “Oh my God.”
Two days ago, my son sent me an email from a customer. He was saying, “I bought a Saint-Tropez book for my mother. She enjoyed it very much, not only the text, but also all the images. Thank you. I made her happy.” That is the recompense.
What it means to mark 30 years of Assouline
It went too fast. It’s like when you are [on] a bicycle, you just go day after day. It’s years now. With this anniversary, I went back to everything since the beginning, since we were nobody. [We] experimented with ideas and wills and desires. I see all that, and I get a little bit impressed, like it was not me.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Adrienne Gaffney is a features editor at ELLE and previously worked at WSJ Magazine and Vanity Fair.