Hermes Constance Slim Wallet Handmade In Epsom Calfskin Leather Silver Hardware 8F Gris Etain

Grey leather is easy to get wrong. Gris Etain gets it right by refusing to be a pure grey: there is a brownish, faintly green undertone in it that stops the colour looking cold or synthetic, and it shifts with every coat you wear it against.

Specifications are shared with the rest of the family – twelve and a half centimetres wide, ten centimetres high, three centimetres deep, a 120 cm strap – so what you are really choosing is colour and finish. Silver fittings suit Etain; they cool it very slightly and keep the whole piece grounded in work clothes. Etain is also the shade that gets the most out of silver: the two cool tones reinforce each other, so the wallet reads as a single piece rather than as leather plus metal.

Contents on a normal day: cards, notes, a couple of coins for the market, keys if I leave the lipstick at home. It has been my commute wallet for four months, riding crossbody over a grey wool coat, and the strap has kept its shape without stretching.

Trade-off number one is the undertone. Beside a true cool grey coat the green-brown in Etain becomes impossible to unsee, which is either the charm of the colour or the end of it, depending on your wardrobe. Trade-off number two is the same as any slim wallet: at three centimetres deep a phone stays in your hand.

Against navy, ecru and washed denim it is quietly superb, and it is the least likely colour here to feel dated in three years.