Who it suits

The slim profile of the Allett Classic Leather Women’s Sport Wallet was the primary feature that first drew me to it. I rarely carry a purse so unless I’m going to or from work with my laptop bag, I carry my wallet alongside my phone in either a jacket or pants pocket. With slim-fitting jackets and pants, minimizing bulk is key to being able to tuck both into a pocket. This is a great wallet for someone who’s looking for a high-quality, low profile that doesn’t look like you borrowed it from your uncle. Also, as an American-made leather wallet (supple Napa leather to be precise), it’s a steal at USD $24.95.

Who it doesn’t suit

This wallet has very few bells and whistles. It is straightforward, small and light so if you’re someone who carries 25 supermarket loyalty cards, and keeps every receipt you’ve ever received in your wallet, you’re going to quickly max this wallet out. While Allett specifically markets it as a women’s wallet, it’s not overly feminine. Other than offering somewhat feminine color choices (mine is turquoise, 2014 wallets are available in black, camel, cherry, fuchsia and sea blue) it’s indistinguishable as a women’s wallet. I appreciate this subtler styling, but not all women will.

The Good

Over time, I was surprised at how well the leather has worn. It is so supple and thin at first fondling; I doubted the longevity of such staggeringly slender hide. My primary concerns were not only durability, but also how the leather would age as it got scuffed and worn. While the color has darkened, and it does show scuffs, they rub out and lend a patina to the leather that allows it to age without looking dingy.

I appreciate the bit of rubberized elastic hidden inside the pockets, which are designed to keep a snug hold on your credit cards. There is no trick to it. Just push a card in, and you instantly feel the wallet hold the card with a bit of tension. The interior pocket layout is very simple, with a card pocket on each side and a bill pocket in back. Because there are only two pockets for cards I carry anywhere between three and five cards in each side. The rubberized elastic maintains its hold, even when the pockets are packed full of cards.

The Not So Good

Alletts are known for (but not this particular one) their RFID-blocking alloy, which protects against identity theft on cards with RFID chips. While I currently only carry one RFID card, since this wallet is not RFID blocking I use a protective RFID-blocking sleeve to keep my ID safe. I anticipate RFID blocking being a key feature in future wallets and would love to see Allett incorporate it into more, perhaps all of their products, especially those with slim profiles oriented towards women. 

Conclusion

For women who are looking for a small wallet that slips easily into a pocket, the Allett Classic Leather Women’s Sport Wallet is perfect. It’s stylish without being overly bulky or feminine and holds up well to use despite the very soft leather. Despite being very simple, thoughtful details like rubberized elastic inside the pockets to keep cards secure make it highly functional. Also, as an American-made leather wallet it’s great value for the price.

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Evernote – Helping slim your wallet

Evernote is Everawesome. Do you use it? Evernote is a pretty neat little application that makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web. The application allows you to store notes/images/thoughts in the cloud and sync it between your computer and phone (iPhone, Blackberry, not sure about Android yet?)

There’s a whole bunch of things you can do with Evernote, but from a carrying point of view, we love it as it allows us to really cut down on the amount of receipts we carry around in our wallets. Which in turn allows us to avoid that hilarious moment on the street when you open your wallet and all your receipts fly out. Aahhhh, George.

How do you do it?

• When you are given a receipt, take a photo of it.
• Email the receipt to an Evernote email account you’ve set up and shared with your accountant.
• Screw up the receipt and never think about it again

If you do your accounts yourself, it’s almost as easy…

• After taking the photo, open Evernote on your phone and create a new note from the photo you’ve just taken.
• Create a title – eg > Receipt for Coffee at Starbucks.
• Add tags to the note for easy searching – eg > Receipts, Coffee, Starbucks
• Then Save your note.

Now you have the receipt saved to you Evernote account which you can either print out or email (way easier) to your accountant come tax time.

If you ever need the receipt for a product return, you just search for the store name and show them the receipt on your phone.

Receipts are one of the main culprits with Costanza wallets. The better you can get rid of them, the better you’ll get rid of that ugly bulge.

Like we mentioned earlier there are loads of different ways you can use Evernote and this is only one of them. I also use it as an inspiration board – clipping things I find inspiring, exciting, etc on the net to my Evernote account that then allows me to check back later on. You can learn more about Evernote HERE.

And no, Evernote have not sponsored this. It’s just a neat programme that is free for the basic version. Enjoy!

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This is a pretty carry-indulgent post, but go on, indulge us…

We wanted to take a closer look at a stitchless carry case from a leather works crew in Italy. It’s made by Peroni Firenze, and uses a construction technique that is not often seen. So here’s a bit of a geek-out about it…

A whack of leather, some lining, and lots of stitches seem to be the key ingredients in most wallets and pocket carry. While we’ve seen some amazing (mostly) stitchless bags, there are not many stitchless wallets doing the blog rounds. Thankfully, there does seem to be a small thing amongst some of the Italian and Spanish makers to push their craft and explore new ways to build a pocket organizer, and this is a neat example of it.

These stitchless products generally rely on the structure of traditional vegetable tanned leathers, which are then heat formed and glued. It’s hard to finish a wallet well like this, so not many makers will even try it.

The benefits? None really, other than less chance of a stitch coming undone. But it is nice to get that little nod of appreciation from a fellow carry nut when they realize you’re carrying something a little out of the ordinary.

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And now the real geekery

For anyone that has not run away with their eyes bleeding by now, I figured we’d give a quick run down on how we think they actually do it…

Start with a lightly painted vegetable tanned hide with minimal softening work. Skive 10mm wide channels to half depth on alternate sides. Chamfer these skived edges. Place into heated mold, glue edges, and heat set leather (while also embossing logo details). Remove from tool and paint edges. Package, sell, and flip out a few carry nuts.

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Post Note: It was actually a geek out with Jarren from Temono where he got us on to this neat stitchless case from Spain. So thanks Jarren!

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Wallets We Love | Liking

Who Are They: Wallets We Love is a blog about the thing we carry around to keep our valuables in – Wallets.

Why We Like It: Obviously we’re big wallet fans, so it got us quite excited to see a new site pop up that is as equally, if not more, obsessed by them.

Who Else Might Like It: Anyone who has a wallet. Or in a more detailed answer, anyone who is interested in furthering their wallet knowledge. And beyond that you can see some of the great wallets released and have a giggle and the ones that somehow made it to production…

Where They Are: Online! You can check them out at walletswelove.com

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Wallet Formats

A wallet is essentially a pocket organiser. It needs to store, and then provide access to, the cards and notes we keep in our pockets (we’ll cover large format organizers and ladies purses in another post). Yet with that wonderful diversity that human nature manages, there are tons of wallet types and formats.

In the spirit of carry geekdom, we thought we’d go through a few of those formats, outlining when we think each of them is most effective…

Background (because we’re geeks)
We like to think of wallets as arranged on a spectrum from storage optimized (they keep your cards really close together), through to access optimized (they allow you to grab any card in an instant).

We’ll start with the storage optimized wallets, because they don’t bulge in your pocket (leaving you to look sexy).

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Single Sleeves/Cases

You can’t get any smaller than stacking your cards against each other. A good case or single sleeve should then wrap your cards in a thin layer for protection, and give you some way of spreading your cards to sort through them.
Notes usually require a separate money clip, or a spot where you can fold and tuck them in near your cards. It’s this note folding that is the biggest turn off for most potential sleeve users, as it does require some practise.
Lots of solutions in this area have a few external slots, giving some ready access while still keeping bulk low. We find these generally destroy cards faster, unless they have been really clever in sheltering the cards.
So if you’re into reducing bulk, reducing cards, and don’t mind folding notes, you should find love with these.

Wallet image on the left is a Max & Unicorn Wallet
Wallet image on the right is a Masakage Tanno Wood Buisness Card Case

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Bifold Wallets

Most of the men’s wallet world lives in this space. A clean bifold can be a great compromise between storage efficiency and easy access. A good bifold helps you prioritise between frequently used cards (like your main credit card and ID which need fast access slots), and your infrequently used cards (which should be stored more efficiently and out of the way). When you start adding additional flaps and sections, they start to loose any elegance.

The biggest flaw with most bifolds is the amount of leather they put into them. You can sometimes end up with 10 layers of leather in depth, which adds crazy bulk and ugly pocket bulges. Less is definitely more here.

Wallet image on the left is a Alice Park
Wallet image on the right is a Barret Alley

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Trifold Wallets

Generally speaking, trifolds are crap. You just end up with too much leather, too many layers, and too much fold complexity (for no real gain). There are some trifolds that do a better job of it, but we think you can almost always get a better end solution with another format.
If you’re using a trifold with additional card flaps, ummm… wow. There’s probably not a less efficient wallet out there.

Wallet image on the left is a Bavelli Leather
Wallet image on the right is a Meridan

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Defying convention

“All models are wrong, but some are useful” (George Box)
No matter how you try to segment an area, there will always be some that don’t fit your categories. Here you’ll find any number of concertina, origami or moulded solution, most of which are more about originality than better solving our carrying problems.

If you like to carry a weird mix of items together, or feel like convention needs to be defied, you might well find a great solution in this broad category.

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Extra bit at the bottom:
The credit card has actually revolutionized wallets. Let me explain…

Previously, having no standard size to base decisions from, institutions would make their identification all kinds of dimensions. Drivers licenses, medical papers and membership documents could vary from a small dog tag to a business letter size behemoths. Somehow, your wallet had to fit all these.

With the mass proliferation of the credit card, identification has slowly moved towards this standard size (known in the ISO/IEC 7810 standard as ID-1 size). There are other larger standard ID sizes (like the ID-3 Passport size), but only big and annoying government organizations specify those (especially in Europe).

So while we normally all diss the credit card contagion, your wallet is secretly blessing it, as we now know what a wallet needs to hold. Oh, other than currency sizes, where some nations are very slow to catch up. If you have to haul huge GBP or Euro around, perhaps ask your national mint to get with the times.

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Our favorite women’s wallets

If you want to view a larger version of the image above, click [HERE]

It’s funny that wallets have ended up like formal wear – while there is comparatively little difference amongst men’s, women have a huge range and variety.

We have selected some of our favourite women’s wallets. These include both pocket sized and handbag sized, with each having at least a little something special…

We don’t rate bling, and we don’t rate ‘exclusivity’. If you are after those, just flip over to a Sex And The City episode and buy what they are flashing around. However if you are after a really functional yet kinda beautiful wallet, then hopefully we can serve.

Temono Pipi

Isaac Reina and the  Nancybird Lane Wallet:

Wilson Mabel:

Needles Women’s wallet:

Paul Smith Transparent Stripe Large Tri Fold Purse:

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