Culture Lounge by ASSOULINE

In this episode of Beyond The Cover, Rafael Nadal reflects on the making of Rafa Nadal, a visual biography that looks past the twenty-two Grand Slam titles and fourteen crowns at Roland-Garros to the person who won them. Written by Jon Wertheim, the book draws on images from the private collections of Nadal’s inner circle, alongside personal reflections from those closest to him, including his wife Mery Perelló, his uncle and lifelong coach Toni Nadal, and King Felipe VI. The conversation travels from a small island in the Mediterranean to the red clay of Paris, exploring family, discipline and the quiet humility that has defined one of the most extraordinary careers in the history of the game.
Discover Rafa Nadal at assouline.com.

In this episode of Savoir-Faire, Alex, Prosper and Martine Assouline revisit Formula 1: The Impossible Collection and the year they spent creating a scent, sprayed by hand onto every copy, evoking the feeling of being on a racetrack. Prosper explains why he has always compared the maison to a racing team, where success is achieved by every person working together with precision, and Martine recounts the hunt for the 100 hundred images that best represent the sport, and the pleasure of opening a book years after finishing it and still wanting to turn the page.

In this episode of Beyond the Cover, Mario Codognato takes us inside the story of Casa Codognato and the making of Codognato Masterpiece. Founded in Venice in 1866 by his grandfather Simeone, the house has long lived by one conviction: without excess, beauty cannot exist. Skulls and serpents, ancient intaglios and cameos, echoes of Byzantium, Rome and the Renaissance. These are jewels of memento mori, worn by Gabrielle Chanel, Jean Cocteau and Diana Vreeland, and today by Tilda Swinton. In a city where everything reflects on water, this book captures more than 160 years of Venetian splendour.
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In this episode of The Decisive Moment, master jeweler Glenn Spiro reflects on a life shaped by risk, reinvention, and devotion to craft. He left school at 14, abandoned a budding child-actor career, and found jewelry almost by instinct, going on to pioneer titanium in fine jewelry with large, feather-light pieces women could finally wear with ease. He speaks to walking away from his own business to join Christie's, his creative director approach, the kinetic Papillon ring made famous by Beyoncé and now permanently in the V&A, and the family and resilience running beneath it all.

In this episode of the Culture Lounge podcast, recorded at Assouline's New York headquarters, Jeannie Cho Lee, the first Asian Master of Wine, and chef Brian Kim, founder of Oiji Hospitality and chef-owner of the Michelin-starred Oiji Mi and bōm, come together to consider what it means to eat and drink beautifully today. Friends for more than a decade, they trace the winding routes that led each of them into food and wine against their parents' wishes, and the years spent learning the grammar of flavor: fermentation and the hundreds of kimchis that live in a Korean kitchen, acidity and tannin and the way a full-bodied red will keep chili burning on the palate twice as long.