Filofax vs. the World

I don't really have a desk.  I have a cabinet, wherein I keep
office supplies, papers, and trinkets.  I share the cabinet with my
10yo son, who has the 2 bottom drawers.  My computer charges here. 

It's late December, and in late December, I usually spend a week or so (well, not the whole week, but the leftover pieces of it) shopping for Filofax refills, and often, a new binder.  As much as I love my phone (and I LOVE my phone) I remain attached to paper agendas in general, and to Filofax in particular.  I do sometimes use the calendar function on my phone, but not for everyday engagements or for diary entries.  I use it instead to remind me of the most important calls or appointments, and those will also be written in ink in my Filofax.  I'd like to think that my preference for paper over electronic organizers is somehow rooted in my love for the past and my rejection of the dehumanizing tendencies of technology, but it's purely material.  I love paper, I love pens, and I love colorful binders and books.

This is a different cabinet; a small night table, which we actually
use as an end table.  The top two drawers contain old agendas and
Filofaxes. The Whitman's sampler box contains pens and paper
clips, not candy. 

I also love agendas and date books, but Filofaxes are my very favorites.  I first discovered them in the mid 80s, the time during which a luxury version of everyconsumer product became available. Luxury cars, of course, had always existed; and rich people had always worn exquisite clothes.  In the 80s, though, the idea of luxury, of having the best, permeated every possible sector of the consumer economy. Why would you eat Sealtest ice cream when you could have Haagen Dasz? (Made-up word; not even spell-checking it.) Hideously expensive cosmetics and skin creams became mainstream, and every bank teller and secretary had a jar of Estee Lauder or Clinique or (for the really extravagant) Erno Laszlo on her dresser.  The Filofax was the embodiment and exemplar of the luxury ethos of the 80s, and I was taken in the moment I saw one.

This is my work notebook; a canvas
binder cover with a notebook insert.
I love it.  Fred and Carrie are right:
EVERYTHING is cuter when you
put a bird on it.  This picture is
apropos of nothing discussed in
this post.  I just like this notebook.

Inside view.  Pocket and room for
papers and postcards. 

John Wanamaker was my favorite department store, and the flagship store at 13th and Market Streets in Philadelphia was also one of my favorite places in the world.  It had much more than flashy luxury (although it had that, in spades); it had real beauty and elegance.  The floors were marble and walls were frescoed or gilt-trimmed, and an enormous pipe organ filled the aptly named Grand Court with triumphant music. Wanamaker's carried ordinary everyday clothes and household goods, but those were relegated to the upper floors.  The main level was filled with silk scarves and fine jewelry and French perfume and cashmere, and, after 1982 or so, Filofaxes.





According to this Filofax chronology (how I love that this exists), Filofax "gained iconic status" during the 1980s, and this is just as I remember it.  I had always loved stationery of any kind, even five and dime school supplies, and with my nascent longing love for luxury combined with my devotion to stationery products, I was completely susceptible to the lure of the gorgeous display of leather binders, crisp white inserts, slim silver pens, and tiny rulers.  And MAPS! The  glossy, exquisitely colored maps, which you could gaze at as things of beauty on their own, or allow them to be seen poking out of your binder, marking you as a person who might need a map of Europe, or of Moscow.

My love was unfulfilled, though, until 1997, when I finally broke down and bought the first of many Filofaxes.  My first one was a black Personal, made from some sort of inexpensive composite material.  With inserts (including week-on-two-pages calendar, monthly calendar, lined and solid colored paper in blue, yellow, pink, and purple, and of course, several maps), it cost about $65--expensive, but far less than the $200 or so that a similar binder with inserts would have cost ten years earlier.  The early Filofaxes that I had coveted in the 80s were all leather or ostrich; the least expensive among them was $85, and that was just for the binder.  The company finally wisely realized that it had a huge untapped market among lower-middles like me, who loved beautiful things but whose budgets ran to free Hallmark datebooks rather than ostrich leather portfolios.

You know how sometimes, you want something badly; you long for it, and imagine yourself having it, but you resist the urge to buy it, until finally, you give in and splurge, and then, disappointment and remorse set in?  No, that totally didn't happen with the Filofax, which gave me unalloyed pleasure and delight every time I opened it or wrote in it for the entire year.

The black personal gave way to black canvas and then multicolored vinyl Pocket binders, with the usual colored paper, week on two pages, and maps, with clear pockets added.  I finally bought a leather pocket binder (two, in fact; one black and one pink with a Lilly Pulitzer-like fabric lining) and then a pink leather Personal binder, my favorite ever.

I used Filofaxes almost every year.  One year, I tried a Letts of London pocket-sized agenda, red, with a ribbon marker and a little pen loop.  I liked it a lot (and unlike the Pocket Filofax, the pocket-sized Letts actually fit into a pocket), but I missed Filofax.  The Letts agenda had cream-colored paper, thin and lovely, but not white.  Filofax white paper is unlike any other; snowy white, crisp, almost translucent, with the clean white made even whiter by the sharp black printing on the calendar pages.

The cross-section view: It's the
best part!

When I worked for Nordstrom, I was lured away from Filofax once again.  Nordstrom managers received a generous discount on Franklin Planner products (now called Franklin-Covey), and I bought a very pretty brown distressed leather ziparound binder.  At first, I liked the idea of the full-zip binder, and it did look very neat and tidy and could securely hold loose items and papers .  But the cross-section view is one of the most appealing things about the Filofax, and when the binder was zipped, I couldn't see the neat stack of solid and lined, white and colored sheets, separated by alphabetical and tabbed dividers, with (of course) pale blue map pages.  I returned to Filofax, and for the next five years or so (years during which I had a full-time job and no children), I bought a new binder every year; hence the collection pictured above.

So this is my new 2015 agenda. It

has most of the things I like,

including a ribbon marker, maps,

and note pages.  It could use a pocket,

and the paper should be white rather than

cream, but I like it.  

My husband asked me a few weeks ago to pick up a new datebook for him when I was at Barnes and Noble.  He uses a pocket week-on-two-pages leather datebook, the same kind every year.  I bought one for him at Barnes and Noble last year and he liked it so much that he wanted another just like it.  As always,  I lingered in front of the datebook display, looking at agendas and datebooks and wondering if another Filofax break might be in order.  When I saw the pocket-sized leather datebook pictured here, I was sold.  Although the picture shows the color very well, it can't convey the tactile appeal, which is considerable.  The cover is leather, very soft, and I know that it wears well, since my husband's 2014 version, which he carries everywhere, still looks great.  His is black, of course, but he also subjects it to considerable abuse.  The paper is very nice, too.  Not quite Filofax paper (because nothing is), but it's thin and creamy and feels very nice under a pen...smooth, but with just enough texture that you can feel the pen scratching a tiny bit.  Although the paper is cream and not white, it's a very light cream.  The true pocket size of this one is nice; I can't always carry my Filofax, and sometimes I'm sorry not to have it with me.

This is temporary, of course.  I'm sure I'll like this new agenda (I've had it for over a week now and have already started to use the 2015 monthly calendar pages--the weekly pages start with December 22), but it's not a Filofax, and I'm sure that I'll miss my Filofax enough that I'll want another one.  Check back with me in a year.