Almost every day, young women in long beige and navy trench coats line up inside Paris’ glass-ceilinged Passage du Grand Cerf shopping center before Louise Carmen opens at noon.
They come here to buy and customize leather notebooks. Each book starts at 122.55 euros, or about $143.14, and can go up to 609.55 euros when you factor in customizations such as personal engravings, paper styles, and included charms. With minimal customization, a mid-sized notebook can cost close to 170 euros, or just under $200.
“The queue started in 2023, a year after we started[posting]on TikTok,” said co-founder Nathalie Valmarie, who started the company with her husband in 2016.
Louise Carmen’s TikTok videos have reached a new and loyal American audience, and Valmarie says they now account for 60% of the brand’s online orders. Now, some Americans are posting videos of themselves flying overseas to buy notebooks in person, or stopping by one of the brand’s two stores in Paris while vacationing in France. Some people have posted about sourcing or making similar leather journals for a fraction of the price.
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In other words, notebooks (Valmarie’s term for a leather cover that holds multiple paper booklets held together with elastic) have become a status symbol for some American women, primarily in their mid-20s to early 30s.
Writing in physical journals became popular during the coronavirus pandemic and remains in vogue as some young Americans look for ways to go offline, said Marni Shapiro, co-founder and managing partner of research and consulting firm The Retail Tracker. The U.S. stationery market, which also includes writing utensils, planners, and notepads, generated $42.66 billion in revenue in 2025, according to a report by Fortune Business Insights.
Some people view journaling as a mental health strategy, offering benefits similar to meditation and mindfulness. More than 4 million TikTok posts have been tagged with “journal” or “journaling,” including many about people’s collections of notes (also known as the “journaling ecosystem”) and writing prompts.
Experiencing personalized wellness products first-hand in the European cities they frequent is exactly what this particular generation of shoppers wants, Shapiro says.
“I think keeping a diary by hand is a great freedom.”
Valmarie, who previously worked in the fashion industry, said she came up with the idea for Louise Carmen by chance while traveling with her family across Asia for several years. She constantly slowed their movement while rummaging through her backpack to find one of six Moleskine notebooks, each with a designated purpose, she says.
She says she bought the brightly colored elastic cords to hold the notebooks together in Tokyo and the leather in Chang Mai, Thailand. A shoemaker in Chiang Mai cut the leather so Valmarie could weave a cord into it to secure the notebook, she said.
Valmarie points out that she didn’t realize her organizational solution could become a business until her friends back in France were surprised by its convenience. Louise Carmen grew gradually, primarily through online direct-to-consumer sales, she said.
Valmarie said the brand opened its first physical store in December 2019. Cuir Invest, a fund set up by French leather industry group Alliance France Cuir, invested in Louise Carmen in 2019, according to the laptop company’s website.
Of course, Louise Carmen isn’t the only leather magazine in the world. Paper Republic, based in Vienna, Australia, is one of the more competitively priced vendors. Some TikTok users have made low-cost DIY versions at home or in leather craft classes.
Joe Pine, an economics researcher, consultant and author, says these magazines may be particularly popular because leather has a unique feel, look and smell, making it a sensory experience. Additionally, he says, leather is often seen as a premium material, especially when it’s customizable and customers can think of the product as contributing to their mental health.
One of Louise Carmen’s stores based in Paris
Provided by Louise Carmen
Across industries, modern companies are increasingly offering customers the opportunity to “transform” themselves, whether it’s financially, physically or physically, according to findings in Pine’s book “The Transformation Economy,” published Feb. 3. Gen Z customers who discovered Louise Carmen on TikTok appear to be drawn to notebooks as a way to get offline and be creative, Valmarie said.
Valmarie, who has kept a diary all her life, says she understands its appeal. “I think keeping a diary by hand is a great freedom,” she says. “This is our secret place. A place where we can organize our ideas, try to make sense of things, and create something.”
Conversion from EUR to USD was performed using the OANDA exchange rate of 1 EUR to 1.16797 USD on April 9, 2026.
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