Moleskine
Encyclopedia
Limited liability company
A limited liability company is a flexible form of enterprise that blends elements of partnership and corporate structures. It is a legal form of company that provides limited liability to its owners in the vast majority of United States jurisdictions...
, an Italian company based in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. Moleskine notebooks are typically bound in coated paper cardboard, with an elastic band to hold the notebook closed, a sewn spine that allows it to lie flat when opened, cream colored paper, rounded corners, a ribbon bookmark, and an expandable pocket inside the rear cover, packed in a paper banderole.
Moleskine does not have an official pronunciation as it is a "brand name with undefined national identity". The Italian pronunciation is mɔleˈskiːne.
History
Notebooks with the same features as the present Moleskine notebooks were a popular standard in 19th and 20th century EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, handmade by small French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
bookbinders who supplied the stationery shops of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. As documented by many art collections and museums, in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, these nameless notebooks became a prominent creative tool for avant-garde artists who enjoyed drawing and writing outdoors, putting down impressions on paper, painting from life in the streets and cafés, and capturing extemporary scenes, ideas, and emotions.
Among artists who used similar black notebooks were Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
and Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
.
The present Moleskine notebook is specifically fashioned after Bruce Chatwin
Bruce Chatwin
Charles Bruce Chatwin was an English novelist and travel writer. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill...
's descriptions of the notebooks he used in his travels. The name itself of “Moleskine” is a nickname that Chatwin uses in one of his most celebrated writings, The Songlines
The Songlines
The Songlines is a 1986 book written by Bruce Chatwin, combining fiction and non-fiction. Chatwin describes a trip to Australia which he has taken for the express purpose of researching Aboriginal song and its connections to nomadic travel...
(1986). In this book Chatwin tells the story of his original supplier of notebooks, a Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
stationer who in 1986 informed him that the last notebook manufacturer, a small family-run firm in Tours
Tours
Tours is a city in central France, the capital of the Indre-et-Loire department.It is located on the lower reaches of the river Loire, between Orléans and the Atlantic coast. Touraine, the region around Tours, is known for its wines, the alleged perfection of its local spoken French, and for the...
, had discontinued production that year, after the death of the owner. “Le vrai Moleskine n’est plus” ("The real Moleskine is no more") are the words Chatwin puts in the mouth of the owner of the stationery shop in Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie.
In 1997 a small company based in Milan named Modo & Modo SpA decided to bring this kind of notebook back to life, establishing the Moleskine trademark and starting production of Moleskine notebooks with 5000 pieces. In 1999 Modo & Modo SpA started distributing outside Italy, in the US and Europe. In 2004 Moleskine notebooks arrived in Japan and from there Moleskine started distribution in the rest of Asia. Perhaps due to their link to the literary and cultural heritage of the Moleskine notebooks, bookshop retailers and design stores everywhere are the main distribution channel.
In 2006, according to an article in The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, the company’s small staff was unable to keep up with demand. In August 2006, the French investment fund Société Générale
Société Générale
Société Générale S.A. is a large European Bank and a major Financial Services company that has a substantial global presence. Its registered office is on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, while its head office is in the Tours Société Générale in the business district of La...
Capital purchased Modo & Modo SpA and started investing in its expansion. The company name changed into “Moleskine Srl”. According to an article in the German magazine Brand Eins, Moleskine notebooks are now distributed in 53 countries, through 14,000 stores, 65% of which are bookshops.
On April 18, 2011, an official Moleskine note taking app was released for iOS (Apple).
Moleskine production
Moleskine items are designed in Italy. Most of them are printed, assembled and stitched in China. Since 2008, large formats for Volant, Cahiers and Folio hard cover collections have been manufactured in Turkey. Watercolour paper is supplied by a specialist French manufacturer. Moleskine Srl claims to invest considerable resources in the research of ever-new potential suppliers, according to criteria of quality, price, logistics and fairness. Details printed on the external label band indicate production details. Each item has a quality control number connected to a specific production lot number. The localization of production in China has been criticized by members of the community of Moleskine users. See Controversy (below).Moleskine notebooks are made with acid-free paper
Acid-free paper
Acid-free paper is paper that has a neutral or basic pH . It can be made from any cellulose fiber as long as the active acid pulp is eliminated during processing. It is also lignin and sulfur free...
. Paper for Folio collection is Forest Stewardship Council
Forest Stewardship Council
The Forest Stewardship Council is an international not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder organization established in 1993 to promote responsible management of the world’s forests. Its main tools for achieving this are standard setting, independent certification and labeling of forest products...
certified. According to Moleskine Srl all suppliers are selected after careful screening about quality standards. Labour and environmental fairness criteria are included in specific clauses of all suppliers’ agreements.
Communities
Moleskine is a brand supported by worldwide communities of enthusiasts who write, sketch, paint and draw on Moleskine notebooks. These communities often share images of decorated pages through blogs, social networks or photo and video sharing platforms. The Moleskine team had organized the first Passions Book Journal Asia Travel Show in year 2010, this involved the communities members like Tan Haur, Gwen Yip and many more to share their personal passions in sketches, writing and collages with the audiences in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Malaysia and China. The active members have influenced more and more talented people to join the group and these communities have grown independently from Moleskine srl, even though they are becoming a growing focus of attention for the company, as Business Week reported in May 2007. According to official statements, Moleskine srl highly values the opinions of Moleskine users, replies personally to everyone through customer care and is in direct contact with various Moleskine communities.iPhone and iPad apps
Starting in April 2011, Moleskine has made a web application available for iPhoneIPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
and iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
users from the iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
app store. The app allows you to customize your virtual Moleskine notebook according the company's real-world designs. The app functions in some cases like a pared down content management system
Content management system
A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
, allowing users to organize their writing using customized categories, inserting images, assigning tags and geotags
GeoTagging
Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata...
, and then posting the result online at any number of social networking sites and services. The Moleskine app has received lukewarm reviews on iTunes, and has been reviewed as lacking compatibility with other native and cloud applications and services like Dropbox.
Controversy
Production based in China has generated criticism among some Moleskine users. According to official statements by Moleskine Srl, production is mostly based in China because of quality and tradition in the Chinese paper industry, with a unique combination of automated and handmade manufacturing. All Moleskine suppliers are ISO 9001 certified and most of them are ISO 14000ISO 14000
The ISO 14000 environmental management standards exist to help organizations minimize how their operations negatively affect the environment The ISO 14000 environmental management standards exist to help organizations (a) minimize how their operations (processes etc.) negatively affect the...
certified. Specific clauses in the supply agreement bind each producer to a given set of strict labour standards.
In 2010 Moleskine began labeling many of their products with California's Prop 65
California Proposition 65 (1986)
Proposition 65 is a California law passed by direct voter initiative in 1986 by a 63%-37% margin...
warning label. The warning concerns a chemical that is known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. The chemical of concern is known as DEHP (Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate
Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate
Bisphthalate, commonly abbreviated DEHP, is an organic compound with the formula C6H42. It is sometimes called dioctyl phthalate and abbreviated DOP. It is the most important "phthalate," being the diester of phthalic acid and the branched-chain 2-ethylhexanol. This colourless viscous liquid is...
), a type of plastic softener used in all Moleskine notebook covers except for the Cahier line which are made of cardboard. This new warning has caused many users of Moleskines to question the company's commitment to high environmental and safety standards.
Since August 2010, all Moleskine new products offered to retailers, in California and throughout the world, are Prop 65 compliant.