Topolska 18, Belgrade | Introducing our first store

Last week I had the great privilege of watching one of my biggest dreams come true. We opened up our first ever permanent retail location! Over the past decade, there have been pop-ups and shows and open studios and meet ups…but never the opportunity to fully let The Letterist live and breathe in a space of her own.

It was without a doubt the most administratively, financially and creatively challenging venture in our history…but in just a few short days since its opening, it has proved to be worth it, and the best possible decision in every possible way.

See, we didn’t exactly open up a store. We opened up the doors to our studio. We created a space where people can drop in, find inspiration, tools or a gift, talk to us about their favorite novel or obsessive journalling habits, and leave feeling just a little more in love with love.

Meet Ophelia: the bust I initially purchased with the aim of reselling in the store…who has now become our high priestess and our muse - the centrepiece I can’t bear to part ways with. She rests above it all, quietly overseeing all the other beautiful stationery, tools, and antiques I’m often a little sad to see go.

I’ve lived in Zambia, New York, London and Paris - I’ve dreamt of having a store in Florence and Milan, Paris, Amsterdam and beyond….and I haven’t let go of any of these destinations, but I felt our first one had to be in my home town of Belgrade, Serbia (and conveniently within walking distance for me and the pups).

This city is nostalgic, romantic, gritty, and old-school cool in a way that no other place is. It can get intensely emotional, it can be stylishly apathetic, it can be rough around the edges and also ooze endless charm.

Our space sits on the first floor of a quintessentially Vračar-Historical villa, on an adorable and unassuming cobblestone street. The address - Topolska 18 - was the set of two popular local TV shows - "Srećni ljudi” - which translates to Happy People, and “Ljubav, Panika, Navika” which translates to “Love, Panic, Habit”…tiny legacies I feel are hardly accidental.

We’ve filled the space with some of our cult-favorite products such as our Dot Grid Notebook and the Desk Calendar, and poured our hearts into creating and/or curating a whole new line of greeting cards, handmade papers, writing tools, antiques and prints from all over the world. The Kaweco writing tools have been an instant hit, with new models and colors coming in and out so quickly I haven’t had the chance to snag one for myself.

We put an incredible amount of thought into sustainability - recycling parts of old invitation samples into framed prints, or old calendar quotes into tiny wallet-sized notes to self or other. We pulled some fond old favorites out of the archives, we turned offcuts and leftovers into packaging, and we whip out an old typewriter or stamp to manually impress our logo on certain pieces - avoiding the whole rigmarole and carbon footprint of more modernized production.

We had, and continue to have tons of fun with the visual merchandising. A paperclip “bar” served in vintage cocktail glasses, an abstract Christmas tree on a wire frame, an entire bathroom covered in ephemera I’ve collected and carted around the world for years. I can’t wait for you to visit. I can’t wait for you to see it. But most of all, I can’t wait for you to feel it.

Our little red mailbox loves a love letter. If you can’t visit…write to us at:
The Letterist
Topolska 18
11000 Belgrade
SERBIA

The team on our Juliet balcony, doing what we do best, talking about feelings.

Stop by every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 12-6pm and experience Love on Paper in three dimensions. Scents and jazz and puppies and all.
Topolska 18, First floor.

All photos by the insanely talented Monika Frias @latxina

The Design and Art of it All

When we began working on this invitation suite, Alexandra sent us an email that read: “The only thing I will add is that the purpose of this collateral is much less about the information and more about having fun with design and the art of it all.” Music to my ears.

Many of our clients have usually already sent out a Save the Date and/or have a wedding website that contains all the details about the ceremony and weekend. Often times, as is the case here, its a destination wedding so many of their guests have already made travel arrangements and let the couple know they will be attending. So….the invitation becomes more of a formality, or rather…an opportunity to be informal and “have fun with design and the art of it all.”

Letterpress & screenprinted wedding invitation in shades of red

We began by exploring possible layouts for the ceremony invitation, wanting this to be the most stately, elegant and reserved of all three pieces. After looking at various options from a number of our semi-custom collections, we settled on this serif remix of our ceremony invitation design from The Vanguard collection - a modern, fashion-forward, bold and sans-serif piece inspired by film posters.

Fun wedding weekend itinerary for a destination wedding in Italy

We then moved onto working on the secondary piece - an itinerary detailing the events that would fill the weekend. They had sent such creative and poetic wording that I immediately spotted a few words we needed to pull out and make loud. Bike rides, vineyard strolls, games, pizza…in ITALY? Sign me UP.

Europapier had just shared with us a new catalogue of eco-friendly papers from Koehler and I was itching to try out the Rose Quartz. We decided on a large format folded piece meticulously screen-printed in a fiery shade of red and a subtler taupe tone for the smaller print.

Finally, we added a bookmark insert with their website URL to direct guests to the website for more specific details on each of the events. Love the idea of including a favor of sorts in the invitation that guests will be able to put to use and will remind them of the fun party that awaits them in the fall.

Vibrant wedding invitation suite in all the shades of pink and red

We normally assemble our suites with vellum or paper bands, but we didn’t really want to cover up all this typography magic so I spent a Saturday morning haberdashery-hopping in search of the perfect slim red elastic. The outer envelope is made from a Gmund collection called Urban Architect in a shade called Powder…which is ever so slightly pinkish.

This is one of my favorite pieces to come across in our sample drawers…it’s loud, it’s fun, and it screams LET’S LOVE and LET’S PARTY. See more of The Vanguard Collection here or see another fun red suite for Rat & Boa founder Stephanie Bennett’s wedding that was featured in VOGUE.

The Letterist International, or Nomen est Omen?

“The group was a motley assortment of novelists, sound poets, painters, film-makers, revolutionaries, bohemians, alcoholics, petty criminals, lunatics, under-age girls and self-proclaimed failures.”

I recently discovered that my business shares its name with a decidedly unique artist collective from the 1950s and well…if, as they say, nomen est omen…I can’t say that I mind.

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The Letterist International (LI) was a Paris-based collective of radical artists and cultural theorists between 1952 and 1957. It was created by Guy Debord and went on to join others in forming the Situationist International, taking some key techniques and ideas with it.

The group was a motley assortment of novelists, sound poets, painters, film-makers, revolutionaries, bohemians, alcoholics, petty criminals, lunatics, under-age girls and self-proclaimed failures.

In their blend of intellectualism, protest and hedonism—though differing in other ways, for instance in their total rejection of spirituality—they might be viewed as French counterparts of the American Beat Generation, particularly in the form it took during exactly the same period, i.e. before anyone from either group achieved notoriety, and were still having the adventures that would inform their later works and ideas.

The official base of the group was at 32, Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviéve, Paris. This was in fact the address of a bar, Tonneau d'Or, and indeed most of their time was spent either drinking in a number of bars in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, principally at Chez Moineau on the Rue du Four, or else simply walking the streets.

There was a serious purpose behind their ambulation. They developed the dérive, or drift, where they would wander like clouds through the urban environment for hours or sometimes even days on end. Among their most important texts on these matters were Debord's "Theory of the Dérive" and Ivan Chtcheglov's "Formulary for a New Urbanism.” In the latter, Chtcheglov advocated a new city where, as he wrote, "each person will live in his own personal 'cathedral'. There will be rooms that produce dreams better than drugs, and houses where it will be impossible to do anything but love."

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This article is borrowed (and a little abridged) from Wikipedia. I have great intentions to one day research this deeper and write my own piece…but until then feel free to visit the full Wiki one here.

Image gratefully borrowed from this article on The Spectator which is also an interesting read.