Nancy Laboz opened Parcel in Montclair, New Jersey in the summer of 2003, in a former record store, two weeks before her maternity leave ended. She had spent fifteen years in magazines, latterly as accessories editor at Real Simple.

It is a shop first, four people, calling itself a purveyor of fine paper goods and curious objects. The stationery is their own. Printing plates cut from vintage or hand-drawn imagery, then hand-pressed or printed in the design studio at the back.