The Essential View: Many minimalist luxury card holders and wallets are just smaller versions of their less-minimalist counterparts: they reduce capacity while preserving a separate slot for each of the cards they hold. Each of those slots typically adds another dedicated layer of leather, increasing thickness and limiting what the wallet can hold. If you’re looking to carry only what you absolutely need, and as unobtrusively as possible, you may find that the most efficient wallet is the one that provides the least internal organization.
Last week, I wrote:
Yesterday’s wallet—with its six or more card slots, its multiple cash and receipt slots, and the ability to expand to a thickness that was unwieldy at best—solved a problem that, for many of us, no longer exists. We carry little or no cash, use our phones and watches to pay for most things, and can fit the physical cards we still use into a stack less than half an inch thick. That should change what we want from a wallet. In today’s world of luxury wallets, capacity isn’t the goal; efficient use of space is. In other words, the question isn’t "How much can this wallet hold?” The question should be:
How little wallet do I need to hold what I actually carry?
To answer my own question, my personal set of requirements is simple:
Able to hold seven credit cards or the equivalent—in my case, a driver’s license, a debit card, two credit cards, and a locator card—plus an equivalent-size stack of business cards. About 1/4" or 5.5 mm for each stack; all told, about 1/2" or 11 mm.
As thin and unobtrusive as possible given requirement #1.
That set me on a brief journey into the world of minimalist luxury wallets.
Every card slot adds another layer
Here’s the problem: when many luxury makers of leather goods—actually, many makers of leather goods, full stop—make wallets, they prioritize organization over minimalism. What I mean by that is that for credit and other types of cards, they create a pocket for each one. To use just one example, here’s Goyard’s ultra-minimalist offering, the Saint-Sulpice:
Goyard Saint-Sulpice in Black. Image: Goyard
Each one of the four card slots (two per side) holds a single card. In theory, the central slot holds two. In practice, that’s unwieldy, and only works well for one. So it holds five cards.
Take a look, though, at the layers of leather. There are three on each side. That’s a total of six layers of leather to hold five cards. If you’re even more minimalist than me, this could work. Let’s say you carry a driver’s license, three credit and/or debit cards, no locator card, and no business cards. In that scenario, this works, and it’s not too thick. However, you can’t add anything else—it simply can’t stretch to accommodate another card. And business cards are out, since they require not a thin credit card-style slot but a roomier compartment that can hold up to about 1/4" (about 5 mm) worth.
This absolutely isn’t a Goyard issue, nor is it an issue specific to this particular format. Take a look at Louis Vuitton’s slightly-less-minimalist-than-the-Saint-Sulpice Pocket Organizer:
Louis Vuitton Pocket Organizer in LV Packaging. Image: Louis Vuitton
On the right side, the Pocket Organizer has three card slots. It also has a rear pocket and a front chevron-shaped pocket, each of which could, in theory, be used for another card—though I suspect it would be stretching it. On the left side, it has a rear pocket and two angled slots that, again, could be used for additional cards, though they seem meant for small papers or bills. I’d say it could hold four credit cards or the equivalent easily, but no locator card, and perhaps five or six business cards at most, stuffed into various pockets. And for all that, you’re looking at—by my count—seven or eight layers of leather.
If you move out of the realm of card holders, pocket organizers, and the like and into wallets, the issue becomes even more pronounced. Here’s Montblanc’s Wallet 6cc in Sartorial Leather:
Montblanc Wallet 6cc in Khaki Sartorial Leather. Image: Montblanc
By Montblanc’s own description, it has “six credit card slots, two compartments for banknotes, [and] two additional pockets for receipts”. To provide that storage, it includes eleven layers of leather. I’ve had an older version of this wallet for years now, and it’s thick long before a single item goes into it.
The bottom line
The card holders and wallets I’ve highlighted above are fine choices. I personally own two of them and admire the third, even if it’s a bit loud compared to what I typically favor. But they don’t solve the problem that the modern gentleman—or anyone trying to avoid carrying a bag of any kind—faces: how to find the thinnest possible holder for their absolute essential items in the modern cashless + cardless age.
The issue isn’t that the options above have an excess of capacity; it’s that they have an excess of internal organization. Each card slot makes its card easier to identify (though whether those slots make the cards easier to retrieve is debatable). But each card slot also requires another layer of leather. The holder or wallet becomes thicker not because it carries more, but because it separates each of a small number of cards.
That may be a worthwhile tradeoff for some, but it’s not for me. Once I realized that, I changed my search strategy and began looking for the minimum amount of wallet—literally the smallest possible amount of leather—needed to securely hold my two stacks of cards. That led me to a much simpler design, and next week I’ll explain what I chose and why.
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