Paper

Two Italian stationers, a century and a half apart in founding, and a shared archive between them.

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Giulio Giannini e Figlio has bound books and marbled paper in Florence since 1856, run today by the same family six generations on - their notebooks wrapped in soft, natural-tanned leather with a leather tie instead of a clasp, the ivory paper inside left plain for whatever the owner needs. Fratelli Bonvini has done the same in Milan since 1909, on century-old letterpress machines still in daily use; its Quaderni d'Autore series pairs the shop with living artists - illustrator Beppe Giacobbe's Slow Thought notebook is Singer-stitched and printed on recycled Italian paper - while its 1930s Fausto Gallico typographic ornaments still get reused, most recently redrawn by the letterpress collective Cabaret Typographie into a moka pot for a holiday card.

What connects a Florentine bookbinder and a Milanese letterpress house is less the paper than the archive behind it - patterns and type ornaments kept for decades, still being put back to work rather than retired to a drawer.

Both are exclusive to Australia through The Leopard.

Read our guide to spotting real marbled paper.

MAKER SPOTLIGHT

Fratelli Bonvini

Fratelli Bonvini has been a stationery shop and printworks on Via Tagliamento in Milan since 1909, kept just as it was by the typographers who took it over in 2014. Its archive of type, ornament and printing blocks now supplies notebooks, greeting cards and pencils, with covers by Milan illustrators and by Cabaret Typographie, the letterpress collective in residence at the shop. Exclusive to Australia.

Cabaret Typographie prints

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