Inspired by a couple of really helpful posts on 43 Folders (Jimi: The wallet for people that hate wallets and Open Thread: What’s your favorite minimalist wallet?) and my beginning to wear tighter-fitting designer jeans in an effort to be more attractive, I’ve recently been seeking out the smallest, most compact, yet still usable wallet I can find. And I think I’ve found it.
My quest started with the Jimi Wallet, a very unconventional hard plastic “wallet alternative” with a certain charm to aspiring hipsters such as myself. As Merlin Mann stated, you have to live by Jimi’s rules: up to three bills (though I’ve routinely crammed in five to seven) on one side and up to four cards on the other. So if you break a $20 and get four or five bills in return, you may have to keep some loose bills in your pocket. What gets increasingly annoying is that it requires bills to be folded in thirds.
While the Jimi was certainly better than my old fatty wallet, it still wasn’t quite good enough for me, so I sought out the advice of 43F readers. In the comments for What’s your favorite minimalist wallet?, there were two clear front-runners: the Slimmy, and the ALL-ETT. While they’re both pretty appealing, I opted for the ALL-ETT (specifically the European model), since its sail cloth material is thinner than the Slimmy’s leather, and it seemed more flexible in its capacity and less likely to have contents fall out.
I’m extremely satisfied with the ALL-ETT as it’s unbelievably thin, yet still behaves much like a normal wallet. I often whip it out and exclaim “LOOK HOW THIN MY WALLET IS!” to my unfortunate companions. Also, the main complaint I’ve seen about it, that the sail cloth frequently makes a crinkling noise, just doesn’t seem to happen for me. When I’m taking stuff in and out, sure, maybe a little, but when I’m walking around or sitting down with it in my pocket I don’t notice a thing.
Here’s a side view of the three wallets, my very old and fat Perry Ellis leather wallet on the left, the Safety Orange Jimi in the middle, and the ALL-ETT European on the right:
And here’s a view from directly overhead:
2 Responses to “In search of the perfect wallet”
Aug 14th, 2009
My wallet is a binder clip :) The restriction and occasionnal temporary loose material (change) is worth it. It also damages the surface of the card but in a year and a half no magnetic bar was affected. Money folds in three, why not? Change is emptied upon arriving home. I don’t need to carry any since I have a prepaid calling card (and no cell). My second choice was an elastic. Nice blog layout by the way!
Aug 14th, 2009
Hey, thanks Alexandre! Have you heard of the “Hipster PDA?” (Another Merlin Mann invention.) It’s basically your nice binder clip wallet, plus index cards to take notes on :)
It’s interesting that we don’t seem to hear much about wallet design, considering that pretty much everyone carries one.