You’ve probably seen people with their Moleskine notebooks, sketching, painting, jotting down little ideas and notes. They’ve even made many movie appearances. These travel journals/notebooks/sketchbooks are legendary if not extremely handy. I love them because they are so low tech but absolutely necessary. Sometimes I draw little pictures on mine but I usually write down notes, scribble numbers, ideas and write whatever I need to at the moment I need to. If I didn’t have these, I’d probably forget how to use a pen.

These books have been around for two centuries and famous writers, thinkers and artists were known to be seen with them, people like Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso and many, many others. One of Van Gogh’s moleksine notebooks is in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam (photo below) and Picasso’s is in the Picasso Museum in Paris. I wish we could read through them instead of just be able to look at the exterior. Here are some other moleskine notebooks owned by well-known people. Think about how many of these there actually are. If someone found yours, would they be entertained by it? Bored? Horrified?

I imagine the original ones, from their first producers/ bookbinders/paper mill based in Tours, France, were handcrafted, high quality and very durable. I wonder why it’s called Moleskine (pronounced mole skeen). Were these owners trying to say Moleskin but with a French accent? Anyway. It’s so sad they stopped making them in 1986. Luckily, an Italian producer bought the tradename Moleskine in 1998 (no one bothered to trademark it beforehand), which is why we can find them today pretty much everywhere (though they are slightly different).

Though relatively old news, I just found out about it: The latest news is that just two months ago, the private investment division of Société Générale purchased Moleskine from the Italian company, Modo & Modo for 60 million euros. So, these famous little black travel notebooks are currently back in French hands. Will the quality last? Time will tell.

In any case, Moleksine has always been somewhat of a cult item. Long live the society of scribblers!

Trivia
Henry Matisse Oscar Wilde, Kevin Spacey, Vincent van Gogh, André Breton Ernest Hemingway, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro were/are Moleskine users.

Cameo appearances of Moleskine books in Films
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Magnolia (1999)
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
Amelie (2001)
K-Pax (2001)
Shall We Dance? (2004)
I Heart Huckabees (2004)
Bones of Contention (2005)
The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
National Treasure (2004)
Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Looking for a pocket size Moleskine Notebook?
Go here: Moleskine Pocket Notebook

Related links:
Moleskine
Renaissance Art Leather-bound Notebooks (I love these notebooks too)
Moleskine Art
Moleskine Fan Site Moleskinerie
Lens at Squidoo