If a handmade leather wallet could talk, you’d be surprised at the stories it would tell. Not just tales of adventure and travel from an inside pocket either. Even before you hold the wallet in your hand for the first time, it’s been on an extraordinary journey.
As for a wallet made by Minimum Squared, perhaps its journey is more remarkable than most. Our process has roots in the traditional leatherwork that Spain is famous for.
From hide to finished wallet, we use centuries’ old leatherwork tools and machines. We borrow from bookbinding and saddle making techniques and blend them with contemporary technologies.
When it comes to tools, we work with the best, importing them from the finest suppliers in Europe and even moving workshop when we need to. In an age of mass manufacturing, it’s easy to forget the sheer amount of work and soul that goes into handcrafted products.
After reading this, you’ll never look at a simple handmade leather wallet in the same way again.
Hand Cutting the Hides
Each wallet starts out as a high-quality leather hide before being hand-cut into smaller pieces with a trusty knife. Since leather is a natural product, a surface can contain defects. Hand cutting each piece and carefully choosing the best parts, we make sure of a beautiful finish.
Creating a Slim Silhouette
You might not think wallets and books have much in common, but once we’ve cut the hide to size, we move on to an old bookbinding workshop.
Here, we use a splitting machine to achieve our desired leather thickness, sandwiching the hide in the machine to reduce thickness down. The exact thickness depends on which wallet we’re making. This vital step helps us produce our slimmest minimalist wallets to sit unobtrusively in any pocket.
Cutting the Pattern Pieces
Whilst previous generations had no choice but to use hand leatherwork tools, today things are different. Where technology offers an advantage without compromising quality, we’ll take it.
After the leather is the right thickness, we use a laser in another workshop to meticulously cut each pattern piece. A laser is far more precise and accurate than the human hand or eye. It’s an essential step because our unique folding construction method means the dimensions need to be exactly right.
Making Perfect Folds
Once the piece of leather is cut, we then head back to our studio. There, we pick up a wooden leather folder and riveting hammer, both saddle making tools from the traditional French manufacturer Vergez Blanchard.
These help us fold the leather with neat creases and give our minimalist wallets their slim profile, even when folded and filled with cards and notes.
Branding Our Leather Wallets
The last tool we use before we stitch everything together is a custom-made bronze stamp. We brand each wallet with the distinctive Minimum Squared logo you’ll see on the bottom left-hand side.
Sewing Together
The last stage is where everything comes together and once again, we use traditional saddle making tools. We thread a saddler’s harness needle from British manufacturer John James with German Ritza 25 Tiger or French Fil au Chinois thread to create our special stitches.
Handmade Leather Wallets From Spain
And there you have it - an exquisite handmade leather wallet from start to finish. And the journey doesn’t stop there.
We use durable, high-quality materials for our wallets and guarantee them for three years.
And if the thread or elastic wears out you can send them back to us and we’ll make them as good as new again.
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