SOULS
This year, we lost two great friends of paper republic.
Alex was a developer in our web team at Genova Webart in Zaporizia, Ukraine. He joined the army when the Russian invasion of Ukraine started. Together with our friends there, we have been involved in supporting Ukraine as much as we can (but unfortunately not enough). Alex was killed in action during the summer. He leaves behind a wife and a child.
Arnaud was a trustful friend, investor, and mentor for paper republic. At the beginning of the year, he started coaching our operations team, helping us to organize our production and warehouse more efficiently. We could not have managed this year without his help. He left us unexpectedly in September this year.
SMILES
2023, the year when so many new smiles joined our team:
Ani, Patrick (Fulfilment), Gabriel (Warehouse), Julia, Oleh, Liudmyla, Madina, (Stock Production), Lea, Anastasia (Marketing), Noelia (Inventory), Jimena (Purchasing), Nadja, Karolina, Carina (Leather Production) and Hanae (CustomerSupport).
We are now 35+ people from 14 countries, speaking 10 languages, and spreading the joy of paper republic to the world.
HORIZONS
2023, the year of new horizons. There are now 40 shops selling paper republic products worldwide, including in Japan, where we have started a new cooperation with the cult stationery retailer Itoya. Ranee and Elisa visited them in September.
In the US, paper republic is now represented in 15+ stores, including New-York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
CRAFT
This year, we created more than 500 unique pieces at l’atelier, based on your requests.
Evelyn, Steffi and Ranee have produced butterfly-like leather covers, le sleeve portfolios, A3 portfolios, leather journals in different shapes and sizes, and unique colour combos.
DENMARK
It started with a friendship and ended up in a stunning collaboration. We created a special book refill edition with our long-standing friend Henryk from Dybdahl, whom we also visited in Copenhagen. The playful notebooks with unique illustrations are already some of our best-sellers.
PLAYFUL
We dared the impossible: create a unique wallet, made from a single piece of leather and entirely folded to carry cards, coins and cash. Le fold was pre-launched earlier this year and we were overwhelmed with its success.
It will be back in stock next year.
CRAZY
What a year! I remember the year 2018, we used to ship 2000 orders during the year at that time. For the first time ever, we shipped more than 50.000 orders to 80+ countries worldwide in 2023. This is an incredible success story.
