AUTUMN//WINTER 2018 31 30 AUTUMN//WINTER 2018 STATIONERY BIZ HOT PRODUCT RELEASES JULIA FAIERS explores how our quest for individuality is driving the customised and personalised stationery market. GETTING PERSONAL BACK IN the day, children would carefully scribe their names in biro on school books, and adorn diaries with stickers. Personalised stationery was a do-it-yourself affair for children, while grown-up monogrammed stationery was a luxury accessible only to the wealthy. How things have changed! Online shopping means we can buy whatever we want. Millennials, who have grown up not knowing life before the internet, are searching for ways to stand out and be unique. Whole sectors have sprung up to facilitate this desire to make things our own, be that paper goods and the pens and accessories to decorate them, or notebooks and diaries personalised with our names or favourite slogans. A few innovative companies have carved out highly successful businesses catering to the stationery lover’s desire to create and use something unique. Papier is one such brand. Founder and CEO Taymoor Atighetchi spotted a gap in the market for design-led invitations and greeting cards and launched his concept online in 2015. Technology allowed him and his close-knit team to build a brand that offered affordable but fashionable personalised stationery in just a few clicks. Atigetchi told Stationery Matters (see the full interview on page 54): “Personalisation offers you the chance to make a design or product your own – I think that’s important. In a world where everyone can end up having the same thing, being able to put your unique mark on something is an appealing factor for any modern shopper.” Papier has branched out from its initial offer of personalised, design- led invitations and greetings cards to include not only notebooks and diaries, but also personalised books for children and now photobooks. This clearly disrupts big players like Moonpig and Funky Pigeon. Recently Papier has taken its personalised wedding stationery up a notch with the option of adding gold foiling to some of its most popular designs. Chic boutique kikki.K has spotted the growing trend. In July it announced via newsletter that its range of leather-bound planners, notebooks and accessories (luggage tags and clutch bags) could all be personalised with up to five characters and in a Customisable notebooks,invitations and notecards by Papier Personalised children’s book from Papier 12 13 14 15 16 17 12 ExerciseYour Demons journal by Lucy Irving, Ammonite Press,thegmcgroup.com 13 Leather document wallet,HiDE collection, Katie Leamon,katieleamon.com 14 Notecards,Portico Designs, porticodesigns.com 15 Leather card wallet,StudioSarah, studiosarah.co.uk 16 Sequin blue fountain pen,Graf von Faber- Castell for Bentley,graf-von-faber-castell.com 17 Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach pencil box with 12 wooden colouring pencils and sharpener,Portico Designs,porticodesigns.com