Moleskine Helps Unleash ‘Human Genius’ Via More Partnerships
MILAN — For anyone thinking paper notebooks are old-fashioned and might soon be entirely forgotten in favor of tablets and smartphones, think twice.
According to Moleskine’s chief executive officer Daniela Riccardi, the fascination for paper’s tactile feel is not waning — and has percolated down to Gen Z. Her mission is to keep pushing and spreading the Milanese stationery company’s ethos via a revamped strategy more in tune with the times.
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Collaborations and cross-pollination are an integral part of this. The latest in a handful of premium linkups — with the likes of Missoni, Lamborghini and velvet supplier Pontoglio for limited-editions notepads, and Kaweko for a pen — is centered on Japan’s Hanami season.
The brand conscripted Japanese textile designer and artist Yuri Himuro to create a limited-edition collection of notebooks and agendas bearing a Sakura-inspired motif celebrating the Hanami season, the time of the year between March and April when cherry trees blossom across Japan conjuring a fascinating landscape.
“I’m fixated with cross-pollination,” said Riccardi, a seasoned executive who has held executive roles at Procter & Gamble, crystal maker Baccarat and Diesel before taking up the top job at Moleskine in April 2020.
“The rationale is always to permeate all the different fields in which the brand can be meaningful and relevant. Our mission at Moleskine is to unleash the human genius through hands on paper, to empower creativity and human genius which are expressed powerfully — as neuroscience suggests — when you write by hand on paper,” she offered.
The brand is spreading this message globally via incursions into different cultures and fields with an “inside-out” approach. Moleskine’s aim, Riccardi said, is “to create desirable objects that convey the heritage, DNA and attention to the human touch and artistic expression.”
The Sakura collection, for instance, is multilayered. Tasked with offering her personal point of view on Sakura and what a Sakura-bearing Moleskine would look like, Himuro deployed her textile expertise for a two-layered jacquard fabric crafted according to the snip-snap technique, which can be cut to reveal colors and woven images beneath. It is available as a Collector’s Box including two large and one pocket-sized notebooks, two 18-month planners and a box set for 79 euros. Silk-screen printed notebooks come at a more accessible price point just over 20 euros per item.
Courtesy of Moleskine
In keeping with the brand’s collaborative spirit, Riccardi is making it her mission to bring the creative exchange with partners on a deeper and more meaningful level. “We select artists and give them full creative freedom… It’s less about outfitting a Moleskine [notebook] and more about uncovering the heart of the project,” she said.
The brand’s partnerships are three-pronged and include tie-ups with luxury brands, with institutions from across arts and culture, including museums, and with academic entities, as is the case for a recent collaboration with UC Berkeley. Moleskine has also been a case study at the Harvard Business School.
Mindful of the growing relevance of digital devices, the brand, which was born and rose to fame at the onset of the digital revolution, wasn’t unprepared.
Moleskine’s Smart Writing System is the company’s tech-enhanced handwriting experience, in which an AI-powered pen can scan what’s written on paper and turn it into digital files.
Riccardi doesn’t see digital as a threat. “We’re witnessing a growing demand for interaction between paper and digital and frankly I think that our mission is also to perpetuate the use of paper,” she said.
The smart technology “will allow us to avoid abandoning drawing, writing, sketching — which are the quickest ways to grasp the human genius. Then you can always add digital layers to it,” she said.
Currently running around 50 freestanding flagships across geographies, an e-commerce site and windows on JD.com and Tmall, Moleskine is aiming to grow bigger in retail with a strong push to tap into Gen Zers, which she said are very much into journaling and have not abandoned handwriting as one might suppose.
Among the top priority as part of her five-year business plan, Riccardi is committed to leave a stronger mark on society. To this end, she is spearheading an ESG-transformation as part of which sustainability and corporate responsibility are embraced as an integral strategy rather than for compliance.
Asked about paper consumption, she offered that the company’s certified suppliers offset their exploitation of natural resources and that Moleskine is committed to avoid any incineration of unsold stocks.
For example, the executive noted that per contracts with partners on limited editions, the company was obliged to destroy unsold stock after some time, but she managed to convince CEOs to find alternatives. One such option was developing its “Detour” roving exhibition — which last year touched down in Shanghai with an accompanying pop-up shop — showcasing notebooks that were altered by international artists, musicians, architects and more creatives. Through the “Creative Tools for Social Change” program, Moleskine donates unsold stock to foundations and associations helping underserved youth develop creative projects.
“A Moleskine never dies, it always has a second and third life, either because you treasure it or because we turn them into something else… Most of our clients keep all the Moleskines they’ve had across their whole life,” Riccardi offered.
Moleskine started out as a small publisher called Modo&Modo and introduced its signature notebook in 1997. The company was listed on the Italian Stock Exchange in 2013, but delisted at the end of 2016 when it was acquired by Belgium-based D’Ieteren SA.
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