Moleskine is a brand of notebooks, planners, diaries, sketchbooks and albums manufactured by Moleskine Srl, an Italian company based in Milan. 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].
Notebooks with the same features as the present Moleskine notebooks were a popular standard in 19th and 20th century Europe, handmade by small French bookbinders who supplied the stationery shops of Paris. 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, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and Henri Matisse.
The present Moleskine notebook is specifically fashioned after Bruce Chatwin’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 (1986). In this book Chatwin tells the story of his original supplier of notebooks, a Paris stationer who in 1986 informed him that the last notebook manufacturer, a small family-run firm in Tours, 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 company’s small staff was unable to keep up with demand. In August 2006, the French investment fund Société Générale 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.
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