There are few greater pleasures than the feel of a fountain pen swishing across a crisp sheet of paper. Like cutlery and make-up, stationery interacts with the body in an intimate way, and the best examples are miniature miracles of design. Now, despite (or perhaps because of ) us living in a world of typing and scrolling, there is a growing appreciation of these most functional of objects. Whether in a dedicated office or on the kitchen table, the elements of our home-working world matter more than ever.
Let’s start with pens. Although we’re used to typing all day, there is something different about writing by hand. ‘It changes your relationship to the written word and how you get an idea out of your head,’ says Julia. ‘Expressing yourself with a physical mark is something ingrained in the human condition. It is a fundamental manifestation of creativity. So long as you have artists, you’re going to have stationery.’
Choosing Keeping sells a lot of fountain pens; they can make your handwriting more beautiful. Many are bought by creatives – ‘people who are writing longhand, who are committed to using pen and paper’. That being said, Julia also has customers in Silicon Valley, the heart of the tech world.Japanese fountain pens, it’s widely acknowledged, are a cut above the rest.
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Take Pilot’s 1964 capless ‘Vanishing Point’ – the only ‘clicky’ fountain pen successfully made. Its 18-carat-gold nib is softer than steel and adapts to the shape of your handwriting. ‘We look a lot for our stationery in films,’ Julia adds. ‘For example, in The Breakfast Club, Brian is chewing a Lamy Safari.’ Meant for high-schoolers, it is beloved by architects and designers, particularly the yellow version with its Memphis connotations. Lamy is one of the last family owned and run German pen-makers, and its most iconic design is the 1966 ‘Bauhaus 2000’ by Gerd A Müller, a contemporary of Dieter Rams.
If you’ve ever wrestled with a pair of blunt scissors, you’ll know buying cheap is a false economy. Alongside Japanese examples, Julia sells Italian scissors that are the last to be made in Europe, in a village near Lake Como. It’s also no surprise that Italians put as much skill into the humble stapler as they do into other areas of design.
Zenith staplers have been manufactured by a family firm outside Milan since the 1920s and come with a lifetime warranty. ‘They really represent Italian manufacturing,’ Julia says. Not everything on a desk has to be useful; some objects are purely ornamental. This is the very much the case with the paperweights that Julia has sold in her shop since it opened. Made by a family business in the countryside near Port Talbot in Wales, each one contains a flower preserved in a resin sphere. ‘It’s just a decorative object, but the idea of encapsulating something so fragile, transient, there’s a poetry to that,’ she says.
For Julia, the work that goes into handmade pieces is transmitted to the person who uses them. ‘There’s integrity in objects made in an analogue way,’ she says. Considering the amount of time we spend at work, it makes sense to choose the best tools for the job, choosingkeeping.com
