Moleskine

Moleskine FAQ

What’s the history of Moleskine?

Moleskine is a company from Milan, Italy, that started selling notebooks in 1997, but the history of the product goes much further. The name is actually taken from ‘The Songlines’, a book written by Bruce Chatwin in 1987, where he refers to the notebooks he uses as "moleskines" because of their black oilskin covers. He was a big fan of the notebooks and was a bit upset when the shop he purchased them from in Paris closed for good. In his book, he has the owner of the shop saying “Le vrai moleskine n’est plus” (something like “the real moleskine is no more’ in English)

It wasn’t just Chatwin who was a fan, this style of notebook had been used for a very long time before this, with Moleskine mentioning Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Ernest Hemingway as past users.

What makes Moleskine different?

Moleskine notebooks come in a very distinctive style, with rounded corners and a sewn spine that allows you to open the notebook flat. Despite their long standing heritage, they also have a more modern outlook on production. Moleskine is FSC-certified, which means they are made from resources gathered in ways that allow for the preservation of forest environments.

Recommended Moleskine products

It would be hard to recommend Moleskine products without mentioning the classic hard-cover notebooks. You have seen them a million times, but there is a reason they are so popular.

For something a bit more modern, you could try the Moleskine Smart Writing System. It looks like a standard notebook, but it uses special paper, and a pen with a tiny sensor under the tip, to connect to an app on your phone. That allows everything you write on the paper to transfer to the app.

If you are looking for a notebook, but want something a bit more unusual, then you should have a look at our Moleskine special editions collection. It’s frequently updated with any limited edition designs.