Melanie Paris Red Glitter Compact Wallet

A compact red wallet with a gold glitter flap

The glitter is not an overlay printed on the red; it is a separate panel that covers the whole flap and catches light at a different angle from the body underneath. The body itself is grained and slightly creased, so the two surfaces never read as one piece. Seen from across a table, the red and gold glitter flap is what registers first.

Size and finish at a glance

Two finishes, one fastening

Holding the two panels together is a camel strap on a dark metal buckle, threaded through a keeper halfway down the front. It is the one brown element on the wallet, and it stops the red and gold from tipping into pure party dressing. The zip runs round the lower half, so the flap and the zip each close a different part of the wallet.

Card slots, a coin zip and a clear window

Open it and the inside turns out to be busier than the outside. A fold-out card gusset opens in a fan behind the zip, a central zipped pocket takes coins on their own, and four flat slots sit opposite a clear window. The lining is printed with a small scale motif in dark tones, which makes an empty slot easy to tell from a full one.

Where it stops being the right wallet

Nine centimetres tall means receipts have to be folded and a chequebook will not go in at all. Once the slots and the gusset are full, the wallet thickens faster than it gains room, and the flap stops lying flat. If that sounds like what you carry, the roomier shapes filed on the wallet page are the better place to look.

What it sits next to in a bag

At this size it travels in an inside pocket rather than at the bottom of a handbag, and it works best against a dark coat, where the glitter does the job a brooch would. For the rest of the small pieces that share that pocket, see the pouches and coin purses kept in the same department.