Silver travel wallet

A silver finish that catches the light

Silver is a difficult colour to get right on an accessory. Too flat and it reads as grey; too bright and it belongs on a party clutch. This one sits between the two: the grain breaks the reflection into small facets, so the surface shifts as you turn it rather than flashing all at once. Under office lighting it behaves like a neutral. Outdoors it does rather more.

Fingerprints, and what to do about them

A metallic surface will not hide them, and there is no point pretending otherwise. A dry, soft cloth clears them in a second; there is no need to press, since the finish sits on the surface rather than soaking in. Stored flat instead of forced into a small pocket, the wallet keeps its line, and the zips stay smooth as long as you are not closing them over a full compartment.

The silver travel wallet, zip by zip

Two zips sit side by side along the top edge, each with its own brass-toned pull, one of them carrying a small charm that makes it easier to find by touch. They do not open onto the same space. One gives you the organised half, with the card slots and the gusseted pocket; the other is a plain compartment, which is where coins, a cloakroom token or a folded receipt end up. The tab at the front holds everything flat while the wallet is in a bag, and the chain-link strap lets you carry it on its own when you would rather not take a bag at all.

The fan print you only see when it opens

Open it and the restraint stops. Both inner panels are lined with an Art Deco fan motif, deep grey-blue, each arc finished with a single ochre dot. Nothing on the outside hints at it, which is rather the point. The printed lining covers both inner panels, so the pattern reads as one piece rather than a strip of trim tucked into a corner.

What fits in 19x12 cm

Nineteen centimetres is long enough to hold banknotes unfolded and short enough to stand upright in a medium handbag. Two full runs of card slots face each other across the opening, which is the easy way to keep bank cards on one side and loyalty cards on the other. The gusseted pocket flattens out when it is empty, so the wallet does not stay bulky once you have spent what was in it.

If this is more wallet than you want to carry, the rest of the wallet range runs down to models that disappear into a coat pocket.

Go smaller again and you are into the smaller formats in the same range, where a card holder or a zipped pouch covers the same ground in a fraction of the space.