They sell 18 million notebooks a year. Now they're going digital

In an increasingly digital world, you often hear about paper industries shutting shop. There are exceptions, of course, companies such as Moleskine that date back to Vincent Van Gogh's time. The Dow Jones' website Financial News recently reported that last year Moleskine earned a ?323 million ($363 million) profit for Syntegra Capital, the European private equity firm that bought the company a decade ago. Moleskine sells over 18 million notebooks every year.
The sleek, handmade notebook with its rounded edges and elastic page holder that was used by Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway, was made in France and is known as the 'Carnet Moleskine'. It might have got its name from a type of cotton - Moleskin. But it was not till 1997, that Moleskine became a registered name. A Milanese publisher, inspired by the description of Moleskine-style notebooks in a book by Bruce Chatwin, brought Moleskine back to life. The company was eventually bought by a private equity fund.
Arrigo Berni has been at the helm of Moleskine SpA since 2006. Having worked with luxury companies such as A.Testoni and Bvlgari previously, he admits when he first received a call to join Moleskine, he had never heard of these notebooks. "I told my wife that I received this call, and she started showing me the Moleskine notebooks she had in her bag. And then I knew this was the place to join. Women have a sense about these things," says Berni. That was in 2006.At that time, it seemed like paper was an industry that would always have a future. Then 2007 happened. "The launch of the iPhone changed everything."
For Berni, there is Moleskine before the iPhone and Moleskine after the iPhone. The after-time is probably Moleskine's most exciting time as it proved that we live in a world that embraces both tradition and technology and that both can live together happily. "Everyone says we live in a digital world, but we actually do not. We live in a physical world and we added a new dimension to it, which is digital," says Berni, who was in Dubai last week to attend the World Retail Congress. Moleskine's research has shown that millennials use Moleskine notebooks the most. "Our key target group in America are the college bookstores."
Moleskine is available today in Dubai, at stores such as Jashanmal and Kinokunya. "When you write something, it is an experience. Recently, a journalist interviewed me and was taking notes on his iPad. He was also writing a book. For the book, everything was being taken down in his Moleskine. Handwriting engages a different part of our brain to the keypad. When we want to remember something, we write it." Berni admits that paper does have one weakness and that is when it comes to sharing content.
And so, to overcome that, Moleskine has worked with companies such as Evernote to come out with digital hybrid products. Moleskine's latest launch is the Smart Writing Set. When paired with a companion mobile app for Android and iOS, the Smart Writing Set can transcribe your notes made on paper to digital formats. It includes a digital pen that records your paper notes and sends them to the mobile app via Bluetooth.
"Moleskine goes back to Hemingway's time. This is the notebook that that creative minds turn to." Today any bookstore, museum shop or art store is incomplete without a range of Moleskine notebooks. They have just launched Mind Maps and Infographics, a series of journals that take a peek at the notebooks of today's graphic designers to understand how they transform reality into visual language. The company promotes a line of bags and has also worked closely with Milan Design Week. The black notebook, however, remains its bestseller. Moleskine has managed to prove that there are some traditions that technology can never replace.
sujata@khaleejtimes.com
Sujata is KT's fashion editor. She makes it her business to stay on trend