Hillsider 69 dergi F1 - Hillside Beach Club

72/73/74
Article: Elmira Gürses
Moleskine®
The Classic Companion of Modern Travelers
The nameless black
diaries that held the
ideas, inspirations and
creative spirits of
numerous artists and
thinkers including
Vincent van Gogh,
Oscar Wilde, Pablo
Picasso, Ernest
Hemingway and Bruce
Chatwin for more than
two hundred years...
One of those rare
objects that created its
own legend...
Notebooks and diaries bound in
coated paper cardboard, having a
pocket inside the cover and
frequently an elastic band to keep the
notebook closed were very common
in Europe in the 19th and 20th
Centuries. Made by French
bookbinders in small corner shops,
the then-unnamed Moleskine
notebooks filled the stationery stores
especially in France, as well as in the
notable cities of Europe.
As we can still see in many art
galleries and museums today, these
notebooks soon became
indispensable to the avant-garde
artists of the time,
who enjoyed spending time outdoors,
were inspired by the streets, the
natural course of life, and
extemporary emotions, scenes, and
ideas.
The pages captured invaluable
sketches, notes, memoirs and ideas.
Novelist and famous for his travel
writings, Bruce Chatwin had instantly
fallen in love with the diaries. The
small family-run firm in Tours, France,
the sole remaining producer of
Moleskine diaries known as “little
black books” back then, had closed
down in 1986 after the passing of the
last person who was privy to the art of
Moleskine.
This is how Chatwin put this in his
book The Songlines:
Australia; het set out with his
Moleskine diaries on the pages of
which he put down his writings that
brought him his future fame during his
trips.
The legendary diaries that
disappeared until 1997 were revived
by a
Milanese publisher. Aiming to
maintain an extraordinary tradition,
the small
Modo & Modo SpA company named
the diaries Moleskine (the skin of a
kind of mole) following Chatwin.
Paying utmost care to replicate the
diaries as described in Chatwin’s
book, The Songlines, the publisher
recreated a nearly forgotten legend in
all its beauty. In 1999, Modo & Modo
SpA extended its distribution beyond
Italy, penetrating the USA and
Europe. Come 2004, Moleskine
notebooks had reached Japan, and
were distributed to the whole Asia
from this country. Perhaps due to its
close connection with literary and
cultural heritage, Moleskine diaries
were mostly embraced by bookstores
and design shops. In 2008, the name
of the company was no longer Modo &
Modo SpA, but Moleskine Srl and the
200-year old diaries with the
registered trademark were being sold
at 14,000 points across 53 cities,
priding each and every artistic
traveler, famed or not, who had once
poured their hearts out on its pages.
Today, the Moleskine brand is
synonymous with culture, travelling,
memoirs, imagination and personal
identity both in the real and digital
worlds. The brand encompasses many
objects associated with the travelers:
notebooks, diaries, journals, bags,
writing instruments, and reading
accessories... Anything that
represents our mobile identity...
Objects that we can carry along
anywhere we go and that define us in
any part of the world. They serve as
the loyal friends of the creative and
fantastic aspects of our lives and are
now recognized globally as a symbol
of the contemporary nomad.
“Le vrai moleskine n'est plus”
(The real Moleskine is no more.)
Bruce Chatwin bought all the diaries
he could find before leaving for