Review: Monsieur Notebook

July 22, 2011

by marcus

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Tom from Hidestationary.com and asked if I would be interested to do a review of their notebook range …. I was really delighted and of course I have accepted the kind offer.

Within 10 days or so I have received one of their leatherbound notebooks. I normally go for the black colour and for this I have decided for brown; and I went for the ruled version as I really like to do a lot of writing in my journals and hardly any drawing or doodling.

So, the notebook arrived, very nicely packed with a really big stamp … I love it and I will keep it. Not only because I like the Royal Mail, but also because I like the size of the stamp. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware of such big stamps. I like to think that it was specially wrapped to look its best ….

Upon opening the wrapping the lovely smell of leather filled the room very quickly; a very nice extra feature. Even now after having it unwrapped for about a week, the smell is still very strong.

The Monsieur Logo is something that I noticed immediately. It is embossed into the leather on the back of the notebook in the right bottom corner; another very nice little feature. It brings the picture of an elderly man to mind, someone how maybe smokes a pipe while sitting at this writing desk with the open notebook in front of him.

The notebook is kept closed with an elastic band in the same way as many other brands; this is something I really need and value when looking for a notebook. The inner cover has a place on the right hand side for the name and address details within a double line border that looks very like Art Nouveau and it’s written in French, obviouly, to keep in line with the name of the notebook.

I do all my writing in my journals with one of my Fountain Pens and in ink. For my daily journal I use a Waterman Audace with Havanna Brown Ink and so this is the fist test I did with this notebook. I must say that it passed the test very easily. There was no bleeding or feathering of the ink, there was hardly any shine-through (for sure less then in my ®Moleskine notebook) and the writing as such was extremely smooth. The paper is with its 90 gms slightly heavier than the 80 gms for ®Moleskine which is certainly the reason for the less shine through. Both notebooks have an ivory cream coloured paper which I much prefer over plain white paper. The Monsieur notebook has 48 less paper than my ruled ®Moleskine have but the slighty heavier paper does make it up totally.
The Sketchbook even has 140 gsm paper but therefore only 96 pages.

The second test was a red Stabilo permanent marker. I rarely use them in red, more in black for lining out headers for example. The good thing again here is the there no bleeding or feathering, however it does shine through on the other side pretty heavily. Click the image to enlarge it and you will see it. Using a Stabilo is not the preferred pen of writing in this notebook. To be fair though, I don’t know many people using such a pen for their writing.
Just beneath it I have some more testing with blue ink and it brings the same positive result as the brown ink.

The Monsieurnotebook also has a bookmark which is in the same colour as as the notebook cover. The attention to detail here really shows that someone has put a few points together here to make this notebook a success and stand out from the crowd.

The Banderole is also nicely made and I like the little man on the bycicle as well as the logo again to the right end.

Unfortunately the Monsieur notebook does not have a back pocket. This is something that I do not use extremely often and I store there a few things only. But it’s great to have when I need it.

Here are few more details on the notebook as such and also on the company Hidestationary.com

Available sizes:

A6 – 11 x 14.5 cm
A5 – 14.8 x 21 cm
A4 – 21 x 29.8 cm
Landscape formats in the same 3 sizes are planned for a limited stock in autumn this year

Available colours with an additional colour planned for autumn this year:

Black
Brown
Tan

Considering the notebooks are leatherbound, the prices are phenomenal: £9.99 for A6, £12.99 for A5 and £21.99 for A4

Conclusion:

The Monsieur Notebook is a great little notebook, stury with the leather binding and absolutely fantastic for writing with fountain pens. All notebooks are “handbound in India, providing fair wages and sustainable jobs. Due to the nature of our manufacturing process, we can only produce as many books as we have artisans to make them. We are taking on new staff all of the time to meet demand, creating new jobs as we go.” (http://monsieurnotebook.com/about-us). In a world of materialism and increasing demand for higher productivity in so many areas, I like this attitude to signal that sometimes, slowing down and not running after the next new thing might be the thing to do.
The price range is very similar to other notebooks; due to the fact this particular brands is still new on the market it might be a bit more difficult to find. In the UK though, the is an increasing number of retailers to be found.

Personally I prefer the hardcover books over the soft cover books. Saying so, not many other brands have the leather cover; so it’s really up to personal taste and priorities.
I really recommend the Monsieur Notebook.

Pictures are taken with my iPhone 3GS and may not be the best quality. Here is the link to the set on Flickr (there are some more pictures than shown here)!

For those who prefer to actually see the notebook in action, I have also made a little video (my first video actually)