Hermes Bearn Wallet Handmade In Epsom Calfskin Leather Gold Hardware ck37 Gold

Tan is the colour I recommend to friends who ask where to start with leather goods, and this Bearn in ck37 Gold shows why. It is the shade that looks good on day one and better in year three, and the pressed Epsom grain means the first scratch does not end the honeymoon.

The cut is the slim flap Bearn: a hair over ten centimetres long, seven and a half tall, barely a few millimetres thick, with the strap tucking through a gold plate that matches the leather almost exactly. Capacity is exactly what I need on a normal day — three cards, notes folded once, and nothing else. It goes into a breast pocket, a hip bag, the thin pocket of a rucksack, and it has never once made a jacket hang badly.

Epsom is the reason this wallet keeps its line. Epsom goes through the press during finishing, so it is dense, dry to the touch and rigid enough that the flap keeps its line through months of use instead of wilting after a month — the fate of most soft wallets this thin. Where a grained leather would mark, this surface mostly just wipes clean, and a drop of rain on the fold is gone by the time I reach the car.

A word of warning: rigid leather gives no quarter when you overload it. Keep the card count sensible and the strap glides; push past that and the flap lets you know. As a slim wallet, which is what it is, I have found nothing to fault.