Moleskine ®, a notebook full of history or pure marketing

In my student days I was fascinated when I discovered the history that was hidden behind this simply notebook. A cleanly notebook yes, with a naked eye it seems a normal notebook with the only particularity that you can close it with an elastic rope. But behind this simplicity there was a good story to tell you.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)Notebook No. 53, June-September 1912,9 x 13.5 cmkept in the MuséeNational Picasso of Paris

All of this started when Bruce Chatwin made use of these kind of notebooks in all of his journeys, he always bought them in a stationery store in Paris, who was supplied by a stationer in Tours, France, until the stationer closed in 1986 due to the death of its owner who left bringing with him the secret of its manufacturing.
Artists such as Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh or Ernest Hemingway used one of these pocket notebooks to write draw, etc. But it is not tested that they used the same notebook, the moleskine, (this word comes from the French spelling of 'moleskin', the cloth covering of it).
Some years later, an Italian company Modo & Modo, registered the name, the brand, and started to fabricate the product thanks to the description on B. Chatwin’s books.
The legend of this notebook probably started when the fabulous marketing campaign of this company, take this legend and started to buy this product more expensive than the rest of the same typology.
I have to confess that I use one of these notebooks. I bring it wherever I go, and I don’t know if it is for the legend or for the marketing effect, probably the second one.

Here's the notebook at present, Moleskine.