A Piazza my mind...

Earlier this year I had the good fortune of winning (partly by accident) three filofaxes on eBay; one of which being this gorgeous, red (though it's more of a salmon in my eyes) Personal Piazza.

Front: slightly ore-loved with a dent or two, but still lovely.

Whilst on screen she looks beautifully soft, and in the flesh (that's an unfortunate turn of phrase to use when talking about leather...) the texture and contrast of colour made me coo straight out of the parcel, I won't be moving in to stay any time soon.

I tried, I really did! But there was something about the Piazza's interior that I couldn't get on with.

The interior contrast is something, I think, a lot of binders would benefit from.

As I said, the interior is lovely to look at and the buttery soft lining borders on the quality of the Portland, but the pockets don't meet my needs in terms of both space and security.

Left: storage.

The left hand card slots sit delicately on a secretarial pocket. Whilst seemingly practical, the card slots have a stiffness that would make even the most untrained Metropol jealous! I'm aware that, with time, these may have loosened to accept all of my cards, but the design of the slots leads me to believe that they will split long before the required level of training is achieved.

As for the secretarial pocket itself; it lacks the security I get from the vertical pocket inside my Metropol. I dare not trust it with anything but the cheapest stickers and least important papers, for fear of losing them.

Right: zipped pocket.

Almost pre-empting this insecurity, Filofax chose to accompany the untrustworthy pocket with a zipped, opposite. The zip is very cute and feminine in its design (I think even in black the Piazza would be a woman's binder) but due to the tight nature of the leather, you will never be able to store a great deal inside it. Maybe emergency change or your bus pass, but nothing substantial.

Another issue I had during its brief use was the singular pen loop. I like writing in pen, but I always carry a pencil in case of changeable events, or rogue sudokus...

The supplied pen loop only accommodated a Zebra gel pen; if it were able to hold a Frixion pen, or if I could trust the secretarial pocket with a flex pen loop, I may have had less of a problem.

Plenty of room: holding two spare week on two pages, with room for more.

Superficial things aside, the main reason I didn't care much for the Piazza is that it simply didn't feel right. Yes; it's lovely, finely textured and is one of the most feminine binders you'll come across, but those features don't appear to be things I want from my binder.

As you can guess from my affection towards the Metropol range, I like a more substantial binder with plenty of card slots and reliable storage.

For now, the Piazza is sitting on my shelf with its brothers and sisters, waiting for such a time that I either warm to it or decide to find another home for it.

Here you can see someone put a sunflower yellow Piazza to far better use that I have mine.