I had a friend in college who was from Tokyo and, during a conversation about stationery, said that if I ever made it to her home city, to visit the Delfonics shop in the bottom of the Shibuya Parco, a notorious vertical shopping mall. "Delfonics is the best," she said with gracious confidence. I made note.
Some years later, I walked myself down to Parco's basement level wondering what was about to happen. What does the best stationery brand according to Mariko look like? What I found was a gallery-style shop with timeless wood display furniture and a full line of what felt like some of the most classically embodied stationery and office goods I'd ever seen. The emphasis on quality, make, and color was palpable. I mean, check out the DELFONICS official philosophy:
The culture that evolves from 1 pen or 1 sheet of paper is infinite.
In other words, stationery is not only a tool, but at the same times also represents a portal to culture.
Our stationery is not only practical, but also releases the sensibilities and creativity in those that use them.Stationery that frees your creativity.
Selecting an item from the DELFONICS range is akin to selecting a book, music or a movie.
My purchases from that day, a pocket pen and mechanical pencil with a natural wood finish, are now available here in the shop. As are a solid assortment of DELFONICS Rollbahn notebooks. At this point in time, most stationery aficionados and notebook nerds know, the Rollbahn is a babe of a notebook.
My first Rollbahn was a gift, pictured here, a special Kansai International Airport edition from the airport's own DELFONICS pop-up shop. This is the same airport that I first arrived to Japan in, from where I began my year of study abroad at Osaka's own Kansai Gaidai university. So it was a very sweet memento to receive not only such a lovely notebook, but one expressly from the region I knew best. It went on to serve me for all five classes of my last semester of college at home. You can see the wear next to a fresh one.
Cracking open a brand new Rollbahn is pretty marvelous. What lies within? Cream colored paper with an unobtrusive smoke grey grid rule. Micro perforation for easy page removal (if you're into that). Five cello pockets in the back of the book for keeping papers. A sturdy elastic band in navy to keep it all together. I'm pretty sure you could live your life out of one of these. Goodness knows I more or less did for those final college months.
