Love of country via Moleskine

Sick of reading about My Pilipinas yet? Don’t be, because Collezione C2’s creative director Rhett Eala — the one who launched a million Philippine map shirts — has got something up his polo-knit sleeve.

This month, he’ll be launching a collaboration between Collezione C2 and Moleskine, the popular luxury notebook.

“The regional distributor, Arnault Castel, who’s based in Hong Kong, heard about the success of our shirt,” Rhett says. “He became very interested in hooking up with the brand when Efren Peñaflorida became our brand ambassador, because Moleskine wants to promote and support literacy.”

Although Moleskine has collaborated with other countries for special-edition notebooks, this is the first time they’ve done any project with the Philippines.

“It was a long process because Arnault had to send the proposal to the head office in Italy,” says Rhett. “All my sketches and specs had to be approved, so there was a lot of back and forth e-mails. I even had to fly to Hong Kong for the presentation.”

The limited-edition Collezione C2 Moleskine will be available in two sizes (desk size for P1,300 and pocket size for P980) and in two-color ways (black with either a silver- or gold-stamped Philippine map). It will be available at select Collezione C2 branches and National Book Stores starting Feb. 17.

“We intend to release other limited-edition versions with other colors combinations, possibly a red, white, and blue one for Independence Day and a 2011 planner later this year,” Rhett added.

Write on!