ONE FOR THE BOOKS

What began as a love story between Prosper and Martine Assouline—and their shared devotion to books—grew into a family commitment to share the beauty of the world through words and images. Thirty years on, Martine Assouline explains how their books continue to take readers through place, time and emotion, one page at a time

- By Alix Lefebvre

The 1990s in Paris were something of a golden age for the arts.

It was an era that defined le savoir-faire à la Française for the modern age; some of the decade's most famous fashion moments were Azzedine Alaïa's sculpted collections, Jean Paul Gaultier's tattoo prints and corsets, and the Galliano era at Dior. Parisian high-society soirées pulsed with La French Touch—Daft Punk and Bob Sinclar on the decks, and everyone dancing like they knew it mattered. Meanwhile, French cinema was making its mark abroad, with Isabelle Huppert, Juliette Binoche and Luc Besson at the forefront of a cultural moment when fashion, music and film collided.

It was during this pivotal cultural moment that Prosper Assouline and Martine Buchet got married. He ran a creative agency; she headed communications at fashion house Rochas; both were into the arts and beautiful things. They often visited Paris's grand libraries in pursuit of those interests, and they noticed a gap: while the arts were moving forward, the books were stuck in the past.

“Prosper and I would often wander into beautiful libraries to browse through books]. Back then, images in books were mere supplements to text; it was out of step with the times,” Assouline recalls. They felt something had to be done to change this. Prosper had a sharp eye for imagery; she gave voice to his vision. Young and in love, they set out to share beauty from their perspective and reframe familiar subjects through carefully chosen images and stories.

By 1994, they had created their first book: