In the late 1910s, at the same time that Coco Chanel was buying her 31 Rue Cambon store, Greta Grosse, a graphic designer and artist in Hamburg, Germany, was – quite literally – writing her own legend. An advertising executive who had been snapped up by Montblanc to lead its in-store visual merchandising, marketing and promotion, Grosse was responsible for a series of ingenious guerrilla campaigns such as a touring Montblanc biplane and a convoy of seven luxury Steyr cars with giant fountainpens on their roofs and hubcaps bearing the now-iconic star-shaped emblem that remains a signifier of craftsmanship and writing excellence.

Grosse was prolific, producing Bauhaus-inspired graphic design for advertising posters, displays and theatrical launches. Crisp, economical yet with a distinct flourish, Grosse’s dynamic fonts and use of modern design and typography made Montblanc an innovator in communication. Thanks in part to her work, having a Montblanc peeping from your jacket pocket became a sign of refinement and taste.

Fast forward over a century, and Montblanc’s newest creative director Marco Tomasetta – who was appointed in 2021 after years of working in leather accessories at the likes of Louis Vuitton and Prada – is now bringing back some of the bold statements that Grosse embedded in the brand. Tomasetta told TANK that although it was definitely unusual to have a female creative director at that time, “it doesn’t surprise me, as Montblanc was definitely disrupting the status quo on a few different levels. She actually became an authorised officer of the company in 1925 in recognition of her incredible influence and work, and her development of the font and style is still used for the Montblanc wordmark today.”

Since taking over at the house, Tomasetta has focused on certain elements that make Montblanc stand out from other luxury brands. “There have been many subtle but intentional changes,” he explains, “from coming up with new contemporary shapes, design elements such as nib details, materials to resemble the distinctive Meisterstück brilliant black finish, the blue and coral colours sourced from the archive and the emblem changing in size depending on the size of the leather piece.” His most recent accessories collection, Extreme 3.0, is a tribute to Grosse’s innovative Bauhaus poster designs and typography, using an embossed crosshatch print on leather that is set to become a brand signifier. “Her visuals and campaigns were such bold statements, a completely different way of getting noticed, and when design is that strong it becomes timeless,” Tomasetta says. “We wanted to capture that boldness and energy by reapplying these design cues to the brand-new collection, as well as other collections across different categories.”

It’s an exciting time for Montblanc. It recently opened the new Montblanc Haus next to its headquarters in Hamburg, designed by the Spanish architects Nieto Sobejano with a jagged debossed design inspired by the mountains from which the brand takes its name. The building is a physical tribute to the art of the pen, housing vintage and masterfully crafted examples, and no fewer than five original handwritten texts by Nobel Laureates and Voltaire’s autograph. It also contains a customer-experience room that showcases archive posters, packaging and posters, many of which were created by Greta Grosse. “There are so many treasures in the Montblanc archive that it’s easy to get inspired – but also get distracted!” Tomasetta says, with a laugh. “I am naturally drawn to the Meisterstück because it is such an icon of design, and an object of desire and perfection that has travelled through the years and generations practically unchanged – I want to make sure that through our new collections, we are bridging the past with the present.” With Tomasetta at the helm of this treasured brand, there are many more stories to be written. ◉