Savoir Faire: Venice, La Serenissima

0:00Alex Assouline:Savoir Faire is a new series introduced to season two of the Cultural Lounge podcast. Each episode features myself, Alex Assouline, president of Assouline, in conversation with founders Martine and Prosper Assouline to talk about the art of knowing exactly what to do and when to do it. Together, we journey into Assouline's ultimate collection, special edition titles, library collection, and the story that inspired them. the artisans who brought them to life, and the vision that transforms books into objects of significance. Today, we're here to talk about the savoir-faire behind Venice, La Serenissima.

0:37Alex Assouline:You have an important tie-in with Venice. It is a place you love and you used to bring me a lot when I was younger. Why do a book on Venice now? Now, tomorrow, yesterday, not important. This book is the ultimate collection. It's something extraordinary. So we wanted to do the best of the best. So Martin did really completely the editorial of this book. I was working a lot on the cover, but I wanted in the cover to create an object. And for me, Venice is also Fortuny. We did a book on Fortuny a long time ago, one of our first books 30 years ago. So we wanted absolutely to have a special edition with a textile of Fortuny.

1:23So it took us a lot of time not to convince them, but to work with them to find the right textile. And Martin, one day, it was a few years ago, we was visiting, we was dreaming to have maybe a store and we was visiting a space. And it was an antique space. the owner gave to Martin a small seal. And the seal was absolutely beautiful. We didn't know if it was a seal made 100 years ago with the crest of Venice, but we didn't take this store, but the crest is always with us because we love the color, we love the sculpture, etc. So when we decided to do this book on Venice, it was obvious to use Fortuny as a textile and to have this crest in the cover as a beautiful object.

2:15So it gives something very, very simple, something exceptional. It's maybe the best special edition on Ultimate we did. It's the most right. It's the most real, I would like to say.

2:30Alex Assouline:So Fortuny is the legendary Venetian textile house, of course. With the factory in the Judaica. and the medallion what does it symbolize? it's a symbol of Venice it's a crest of Venice it's a lion with a book it's a crest of Venice so that official lion ah yes absolutely so the mix of this crest absolutely made like made by artisans in Italy one by one extraordinary mix on this textile engraved again and I stopped to do that but it's the best special edition we never did on this collection. And I like the title on the metal. Yes. Like, you know. Yes, we didn't want it to be embroidered, so we created a metal, and the screws, the four screws are made sur mesure for that.

3:25It's all a question of details, and you can feel something. But it is in the quite, I will say, collection for us, for me at least, which is like the Versailles, like before we did the Vatican, which is also the Forbidden City. all that for me it's the same kind of ultimates you know because it says it is so important you know and it's such a work to make understand such places which are unique in the world now we are talking really about haute couture this is really the haute couture of all of our collection

4:12Alex Assouline:so I love this attention to details it's very inspiring throughout many levels. So these books are hand-bound in Italy, but how important is the craftsmanship for these special editions? Again, you can design a beautiful dress on couture and you cannot realize it. You cannot deliver the promise. The design is beautiful, but try to make it real. And this is a complication. So we need always to find the best artisan who can work with that. So our printer we worked with for 30 years, understand us exactly. No, we have no limit, as Martin says, but zero limit, really zero limit. When you open it, you have something extraordinary.

4:59Because on Versailles, all the book was printed on cotton paper. It's just something crazy, crazy.

5:06Alex Assouline:So you mentioned we have no limit. What do you mean by that? I have no limit in creativity. I try to, when we create a special edition we need to think what is the best of the best Special editions are always limited, you know, editions so we can go, it's a moment, it's a challenge it's a moment that we can be very creative About the layout of Venice what was the process in selecting all these images to really retranscribe what Venice is and the grandeur of it? The idea is to eliminate all the images that are too obvious, you know, and try to find each one of the side of Venice, not depending about the time, because it's yesterday and today.

5:58but the concept of all the images, of all the moments, has to be on the top. So to see, as I said for the other book, is to see hundreds of images, hundreds, until you are really happy with what you have. And eliminate the déjà vu, but to give the most beautiful. It's all made by hand. The manuscript extraordinaire. And the manuscript, etc. And so we could do, you know, some pages like that. We did a beautiful gatefall like that. We had all the popes, you know, we could find all the popes in the beginning. We could find images that retrace all the big painters, musicians, sculptors. And that was the big challenge.

6:51And it was the game also.

6:53Alex Assouline:And were there debates that happened during the making of the book? Always. Yeah. Always. Can you give an example for this one? Always for this one. For the film festival, do we want to show how to express that? Do you want to have people coming on the boat, people in the red carpet? Which kind of image is powerful enough to make understand very quickly. But it's also about beauty. It's also always about beauty. But at the end, a book is like a recipe. It's a question of ingredients and proportion. Finding the right balance. Finding more spice, a little bit more salt. You say cook and I say music.

7:43Same. Because for me, the images that at the end I choose are like, you know, not of music. Exactly.

7:50Alex Assouline:There's a beginning, there's an end to it. The whole melody. Okay, thank you. it's amazing to hear the behind the scenes of our most celebrated titles thank you for joining us in the culture lounge we're so glad you're here each episode is a carefully curated conversation a celebration of the arts ideas and people that make life more beautiful we hope you live with a little more of that beauty today new episodes arrive every other friday at 9 a.m eastern listen on spotify and apple podcast and be sure to subscribe so you never miss what's next.