Collecting Together <br> with Alex Assouline

Collecting Together
with Alex Assouline

<p>Crafting a watch collection can be a lot like making a coffee table book. Both weave a narrative not by including everything but through the careful process of curation.</p>
<p>Few families understand the power of a good edit more than the Assoulines. Since 1994, Martine and Prosper Assouline have been creating some of the world’s finest volumes spanning art, culture, travel, and luxury lifestyle. The publishing house quickly made a name for itself not just for its refined design, materials, and world-class construction but for its taste in subject matter.</p>
<p>As the eponymous imprint’s Chief Operating Officer, Martine and Prosper’s son, Alex, is taking Assouline into its next chapter. We met with Alex in his apartment in Lower Manhattan. Silhouetted by his recently-completed personal library (Assouline offers clients a custom library design service headed by Alex himself), we discussed the art of curation and the joy of collecting.</p>
<h3>Growing up, books were a part of your family’s DNA. How did that impact you throughout your life?</h3>
<p>My parents didn’t mean to create a publishing house. They just did it because they loved books, and they created a few books, and they were very successful.</p>
<p>For me, it led to a passion as well because of that aspect of knowledge, that aspect of understanding different cultures, different subject matters.</p>
<p>Books, especially coffee table books, bring a lot of emotion and intellect because you see these images that can be very striking and powerful, and the text that goes with them tells a story, which I always enjoy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-1165500 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AlexAssouline_Books.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Assouline Books" width="1400" height="1000" /></p>
<h3>Curation is an important part of what you do. Can you speak more about that?</h3>
<p>Think about it. You go online, and you type in Rolex. You’re going to find hundreds of thousands of pictures of Rolex.</p>
<p>Through a book on Rolex (I’m saying this because there’s one in front of me that we made)—we spent a year working with the right author, licensing the right images, and so on to create that book.</p>
<p>The edit is very important in the world of publishing today. It’s how, through our eye and angles, we can digest that theme or that specific direction on the subject and deliver it to people.</p>
<h3>Over the last few years, you began curating libraries. Tell us about your approach.</h3>
<p>Either we are hired to do just the bookcase or the full library room: carpets, tables, fixtures, everything. I need to understand the history of the building or space and adapt to that. I need to understand who’s going to interact with it. Is it people from New York? Is it people from uptown or downtown or people in Brooklyn? The demographic becomes different. The subject matters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-1165491 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AlexAssouline_PullingBook.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Alex Assouline Pulling Book" width="1000" height="1400" /></p>
<h3>What can you tell about someone based on their personal library?</h3>
<p>Everything.</p>
<h3>Everything?</h3>
<p>Not their secrets, not their best friend’s secrets, but you can read someone (sorry for the play on words) really well given their library.</p>
<p>If I walk into your apartment, and you have a library, all the books or objects you’re going to have are things that you like or that your friends gave you that they think you like.</p>
<p>If someone has something like a disco ball, like a helmet, they’re a fun person that likes a bit of fantasy. You see flowers. Are they being taken care of a lot? Is the person meticulous or not?</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-1165492 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AlexAssouline_DiscoBall.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Alex Assouline Disco Ball" width="1000" height="1400" /></p>
<h3>What book or object in your personal library is indicative of you?</h3>
<p>I’m not into astrology or things like this, but I’m a Leo, and maybe I look a bit like a lion. Every year my parents give me a little statue of a lion. Every year. [It] started to become a symbol for me.</p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-1165493 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AlexAssouline_Lion.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Alex Assouline Lion" width="1400" height="1000" /></p>
<h3>You used to collect suspenders and cufflinks. What drew you to them?</h3>
<p>I was watching a lot of fifties movies at a younger age, and I felt it interesting. I would see characters wearing them as a piece of recognition. And the fact that they were very rare to find and acquire, I was very curious. So I started buying a few and wearing them. It became a habit that every month, at least, I was on eBay finding the right pair of suspenders from Trafalgar or Ralph Lauren vintage and things like that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-1165501 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AlexAssouline_Cufflinks_Suspenders.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Cufflinks and Suspenders" width="1400" height="1000" /></p>
<h3>Can you reflect on what you found most enriching about the collecting process?</h3>
<p>For each piece I collected, whether it was cufflinks or a pair of suspenders, I spent countless hours researching. I would then go on eBay and track down my desired item.</p>
<p>The feeling of landing on the piece I wanted and winning a bidding war was memorable. I remember each of these moments with the hundreds of pieces in my collection.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-medium" src="http://watchbox-sfcc.imgix.net/MicrosoftTeams-image+(31).png" alt="Alex Assouline Watch Collection" width="4798" height="3201" /></p>
<h3>Taking a look at your watch collection, what’s the story behind your Cartier Tank with the La Colombe d’Or engraving on the back?</h3>
<p>When my father was 18, he worked at a magazine in France; he was an assistant at the time. He stepped into the elevator and saw the editor-in-chief wearing a Cartier Tank. He loved the watch and vowed that if he had a son one day, he’d give him that watch on his 18th birthday, and that’s what he did!</p>
<p>We spend a week at La Colombe d’Or for my birthday every year, and I was gifted [the watch] there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-1165502 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/AlexAssouline_Cartier1.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Cartier Tank" width="1400" height="1000" /></p>
<p><em>In September 1996, Assouline published one of their first books on La Colombe d’Or. Alex’s father, Prosper, took the photos and his mother, Martine, wrote the text.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-1165529 size-full aligncenter" style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400;" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Alex-Assouline-Cartier-Tank.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Alex-Assouline-Cartier-Tank" width="1400" height="1000" /></p>
<h3>Tell us about the other watches in your collection.</h3>
<h4>Rolex Precision</h4>
<p>I was gifted this watch when I was 13 for my Bar Mitzvah; it is the first watch I had ever received.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-1165530 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Alex-Assouline-Rolex-Precision.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Alex-Assouline-Rolex-Precision" width="1400" height="1000" /></p>
<h4>Zenith El Primero Port Royal V</h4>
<p>I inherited this watch from my uncle when he passed.</p>
<p>I also have a Zenith El Primero Chronomaster Open that’s being repaired now. I fell in love with that watch when I was twenty. I saved up to buy it for years and finally acquired it on the secondary market in 2019. It is so special to me because I bought it myself.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-1165531 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Alex-Assouline-Zenith-El-Primero.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Alex-Assouline-Zenith-El-Primero" width="1400" height="1000" /></p>
<h4>Audemars Piguet Royal Oak</h4>
<p>My parents gifted me this watch for my 30th birthday. It was incredibly special because we just did a book in collaboration with Audemars Piguet. This watch is a symbol of accomplishment to me.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-1165532 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Alex-Assouline-Audemars-Piguet-Royal-Oak.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Alex-Assouline-Audemars-Piguet-Royal-Oak" width="1400" height="1000" /></p>
<h3>What do you find most enriching about collecting watches?</h3>
<p>For me, it goes beyond the rarity and value; it’s the story behind it. When I am looking to collect a certain watch, I spend a lot of time researching the timepiece and the story behind it, how it was designed and manufactured, and the caliber of the piece.</p>
<p>I don’t have an extensive collection, but I am excited about each watch I own. I can talk about and stare at them for hours.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-1165533 size-full" src="https://watchbox-blog.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Alex-Assouline-Portrait.jpg?max-w=1024&q=50&auto=format,compress&usm=10&usmrad=3" alt="Alex-Assouline-Portrait" width="1400" height="1000" /></p>
<p> </p>

Audemars Piguet Rolex Zenith

Written By

Adriana Imhof

Adriana Imhof is a writer in Philadelphia. She loves connecting with collectors from around the globe and getting hands-on with the worlds greatest watches (and showing off her vintage Omega collection while she's at it).

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