ARCADIA
last summer, five lots that sold for more than £4 million included 550 vintage Trinidad Fundadores cigars. A footballer’s agent bought them for £2 million, or almost £4,000 per stick. ‘I think social media has also made people
more interested in the specifics of what they’re smoking,’ says George Frakes, 35, a musician and the director of 1573 Cigars, an importer. If cigar smoking used to be a habit, it’s now a game for connoisseurs obsessed with provenance as much as mouthfeel or the lifestyle. ‘It’s the same with drinking,’ Curran adds.
‘People are drinking less but they’re also drinking higher-quality products.’ Frakes says some of the most coveted ci-
gars are now being imported from Nicara- gua or Honduras from boutiques such as Nicaragua’s Foundation Cigar Co. He is also part of a modern twist in cigar style as a con- temporary gentleman’s pursuit defined by experts and influencers such as Kirby Alli- son, an American whose aesthete’s empire is devoted to tailoring, shoes and cigar para- phernalia. If it can all look slightly preten- tious to the outsider, the nostalgic clinging to a lost age evidently sells. ‘I think it’s part of that idea of spending more on quality, and a cigar completes the look,’ Curran says. Like Freeman, Frakes is worried cigars
may be consigned to history in a more literal sense. ‘The removal of a community that isn’t actually aligned with the main focus of the bill would be a very scary thing,’ he says. There is widespread anxiety in the cigar market not to appear to be buoyant at a time when visibility might be unhealthy (several big players were too wary to talk to me while the bill is still going through the Lords). While the cigar has evolved as more of a
luxury, specialist product, Freeman is at pains to point out that overall consumption is falling. ‘The entire volume of the UK hand- made market is around two and a half mil- lion sticks a year, which is minuscule,’ she says, recalling that 25 years ago it was almost three times that number. (In a statement, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson declined to address questions about the cigar business community, saying only that ‘all tobacco products pose signifi- cant health risks’.) Curran appears to be less concerned, and
even reports rumblings of a new rash of high-end openings in the capital. Unless he hears otherwise as the Lords continue to dis-
cuss the merits of the bill, he will dispense prized cigars inside the Emory’s rooſtop glass box. ‘We’re in a bit of a thumbs-down period at the moment,’ he says, referring to the bill. ‘But people still want a relaxing envi- ronment to go and enjoy themselves.’
products that includes Cubist bookends, can- dles, paperweights and a leather backgam- mon set – the sort of things that might com- plement a library or lounge already adorned by Assouline books. In the spring, in a room accessed via a
TOME SWEET TOME
A NOSE FOR BOOKS
Suzanne Elliott
THE 100-YEAR-OLD wood-panelled Lutyens building on Piccadilly, home to Assouline’s London store for a decade, is a three-storey ode to the luxury tomes and objets d’art that have become loved and admired by well- heeled aesthetes the world over, ever since the business was founded in Paris by Prosper and Martine Assouline in 1994. In its first 31 years, Assouline Publishing
has released hundreds and hundreds of ti- tles, oſten in collaboration with luxury brands, fashion houses, artists and cultural institutions. Everyone and everything from Saint-Tropez to Patek Philippe, Roger Feder- er and the sport of golf has had the Assouline treatment – by being made the star of at least one (and sometimes several) opulent, oversized books that have become an interi- or design shibboleth for high-end hotels, superyachts and prime property develop- ments from Mayfair to Monaco. So far, so good. And, presumably, so lucra-
tive. The books themselves vary in price. One on Saint-Tropez is priced at £85, while the tome on golf (Golf: The Impossible Collec- tion) is a cool £1,195. The company does not publish or report financial information, but it’s also understood to make out handsomely from its deals with some of the brands that benefit from the exposure and credibility that come as a result of being the subject of an Assouline book. Now Assouline is setting its sights higher still, under a new boss. Prosper and Martine’s son, Alexandre, took over as president of the publishing house in January. Under Alexandre, 32, Assouline has launched the ‘Library Collection’, a range of
narrow spiral staircase at the brand’s flag- ship store in London, Maison Assouline, the quietly spoken Frenchman explained that he wanted to influence not just what we read, but also the space in which we read and even what we smell while we’re doing it. Assouline wants to ‘own the library space’, said Alexan- dre, sounding for a moment like a graduate of an American business school, which he is. (Columbia, 2016, since you ask.) The 14 library accessories, made from ma- terials such as walnut wood, pebbled leather and brass, are the product of a collaboration with French designer Pierre Favresse, but Alexandre sketched elements of some of the items himself, including a pebble, whose shape is a recurring motif used in several of the pieces. The word ‘Assouline’ means ‘rock’ in the North African Berber language, and a number of the items in the collection have a connection to the family, which has roots in Morocco. The new candles and diffuser fragrances
were developed by Alexandre’s father, who drew inspiration from days spent in a public library, his head buried in books. He has aimed to capture bibliosmia (that pleasant, distinctive aroma of books) with five scents: paper, leather, cigar, wood and the intriguing- ly named ‘culture lounge’ – a crisp scent with top notes of spiced rum and sandalwood. ‘It was a fun project,’ said Alexandre. ‘My dad literally spent days smelling manuscripts.’ Another piece, a huge magnifying glass with a leatherbound handle, was influenced by Alexandre’s mother, who ‘lives with one in her hand’. The Assouline family are close. ‘We eat
lunch together every day,’ Alexandre told me. ‘We work together.’ At this point the PR sitting in on our interview chimed in: ‘They live together,’ she said, followed by an inter- jection from another person present, the globally renowned interior designer Kelly Hoppen. ‘Yes,’ said Hoppen. ‘But he does have locks on his doors.’ Apart from the bons mots, Hoppen was
there to dispense wisdom on styling one’s li- brary – something she has done on behalf of her impressive client base (which includes Victoria Beckham, Cameron Diaz and Boy
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