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It’s On Sale: Chester Mox Wallets

Chester Mox is having a number of promotions this week. First, personalization is free. That means you can have a monogram or message etched into any of their products without being charged. Second, shipping within the United States is also free. And third, their shell cordovan wiry flap wallets have been discounted from $190 to $125. No discount codes are necessary, and all adjustments will be made at check out.

I’m a big fan of Chester Mox, as I think they’re one of the few companies selling quality, handmade leather goods at an affordable price. My own daily wallet from them costs $39. They make everything themselves from their Los Angeles workshop. The leathers they use are sourced from world class tanneries such as Horween and Ilcea, the second of which supplies them the beautiful, slightly mottled, antique calf leather you see above. Once the leathers arrive, they’re handout and then handsewn, and the resulting products then have their edges handpainted and burnished. Each order is also made-on-request. That means if you like the shape of one wallet, but prefer them to use the leather from another, they can accommodate. When they made my wallet, I asked them if they could not put their company logo on it (as I personally dislike visible logos). Instead, I just had them place my monogram where their company name would normally go. The results were great. 

Note, the promotion for free personalization and shipping ends next Monday, the 25^th, and the shell cordovan flap wallet discount ends this Friday, the 22^nd. 

We Got It For Free: First & Company Coat Wallet

A few months ago, I received a coat wallet from First & Company, a relatively new leather goods upstart based in Southern California. I’ve wanted a coat wallet for some time now. My usual card case and money clip combination feels too dinky with a proper coat, so I’ve used this on occasions when I’ve worn a dress coat out. Not to say that coat wallets can only be worn with dress coats, but they do have a dressier sensibility to me that makes them better suited with tailored clothing.

I admit my first impressions were a bit mixed. On the one hand, the wallet feels great. The Italian nubuck leather is very soft and lush, and the wallet is a pleasure to handle between the fingers. I also like the simple and attractive design. There are six slots for credit cards, a flap sleeve for paper currency, and two internal pockets for miscellanea. I’ve been using this on trips abroad and have found the multiple slots useful for organizing paper money, jotted down notes, and folded up receipts.

I also like that the construction itself looks very clean. The leather is hand cut, but the pieces themselves are machine stitched. That might seem like a downside to people who think everything in the world must be handmade, but really each technique can lend different benefits. A hand-sewn saddle stitch can be more durable than machine-made stitches, but hand-sewn leather goods can look a bit rough-hewn if they’re not done well. I like that First & Company’s machine-sewn wallet looks very clean and elegant. You may also notice that the leather on the edges have been turned inward. This yields a more attractive and durable edge, since you won’t get the two leathers’ edges separating over time.

On the other hand, the threads used are pretty basic and untreated, and I was worried that they might break at some point. I told First & Company I’d review their wallet only after I put in at least three months of good use. Well, those three months have passed and this wallet shows no sign of wear or tear. I think it’s fair to say my initial skepticism might have been unfounded.

At the time I received the wallet, their price point was lower than where it is now. I was actually interested in reviewing it for readers precisely because this seemed like a potentially great deal. First & Company recently had to raise their prices, however. The wallet is now being sold at $195, which kind of expensive. If you have that kind of scratch, I think this is just as nice (if not nicer) than the house brand wallet I recently handled at Barney’s. A step up would be those made by companies such as Deakin & Francis or Valextra. There, the leather quality, stitching, and finishing are a bit better, but they cost double, if not more, than First & Company’s. For readers who want something a bit more affordable, I recommend Saddleback Leather Company, Frank Clegg Leatherworks, and Chester Mox. Not everything they sell is low-priced, but they do have some affordable wallets if you look around. The only thing is they don’t have coat wallets, for which if you have $195, First & Company sells a pretty decent option.

How I Travel

I travel a lot for both work and pleasure, and in my time traveling, I’ve learned one cardinal rule: pack as light as possible. These days, I try to only bring a carry-on and one personal item (my briefcase, which always contains my laptop and some reading material). In my carry-on is a small set of clothes – two grey trousers, four light blue or white shirts, one navy sweater, and a sport coat. I find that this is enough to get me through a few days before having to do laundry, especially since we’re not also counting the clothes I’m wearing onto the plane. Other things, such as shaving razors, soaps, and shampoos, can always be bought at the destination.

I like bringing a few superfluous things that make the trip more pleasant, however. For one, instead of wearing a sport coat onto the plane, I use a travel jacket I bought from Herno. It looks a bit like this one from Woolrich, but it has a hidden zippered pocket and no epaulets. Zippered and snap button pockets are useful for making sure things don’t accidentally slip out when you take off your jacket and carelessly carry it around. The idea of being in a foreign country and suddenly realizing that you’ve lost your papers, credit cards, and money just seems really, really bad. So I wear a travel jacket. Woolrich and Boggi have one this season (you may need to call Boggi’s actual stores to order), but you could also just wear anything lightweight and of a similar design. Just search around for “field jackets.”

I also use a travel wallet. These help keep my important documents and cards all in one place – passport, green card, identification papers, credit cards, health insurance card, boarding pass, and little slips of paper on which I’ve jotted down my hotel, flight, and train information. Having them all in one place gives me a peace of mind and some convenience. Many airports these days have multiple checkpoints where you have to show your papers to some official, so it’s convenient to have them ready and on hand. My travel wallet is by Chester Mox, who is running a Father’s Day promotion until Thursday, but you can also find some nice ones by Saddleback, Aspinal of London, Filson, and Tanner Goods.

There are a few other things I find helpful. Sleeping pills can get you through a long flight, but they also leave you feeling drugged. So instead, I eat Tianwang Buxin Wan, an all-natural, root-based pill that relaxes me enough to go sleep. It’s great on the plane and for when I’m trying to recover from jet lag. I also wear Bose noise cancelling headphones that a friend generously gifted me, and either soft suede driving shoes or a pair of canvas plimsolls. Feet tend to swell up during flight, which makes wearing hard bottom leather shoes extremely uncomfortable. Even if you take off your shoes, your feet can swell so much that they can be hard to put back in. Should you find yourself in such a situation, I recommend using my credit card trick.

And that’s basically how I travel - a carry on and my briefcase, along with a travel jacket, travel wallet, pair of soft shoes, and some things to help me go to sleep. These are enough to get me through fifteen to twenty hour travel schedules and still land in reasonably good form. 

(Pictured above: My travel jacket, travel wallet, and laptop at JFK airport)

It’s On Sale: Chester Mox Wallets

One of my favorite leather goods companies, Chester Mox, is having a Father’s Day promotion. Until June 14th, you can get any wallet monogramed for free. On many of the wallets, this will be put in place of the company’s logo. A nice way to both get something logo free and personalize a product for someone you love (or for yourself). 

Chester Mox is a simple, one-family operation based out of Los Angeles. They make all of their products by hand, and the family has over twelve years of experience working with leathers. The construction of their wallets is very good and they use leathers from the best tanneries in the world. Two of them, Ilcea and Horween, for example, supply leathers to top footwear manufacturers such as John Lobb and Alden. All of the handwork they put into their products, from the stitching to the edge painting, is also well done. 

Since everything is made on order, you can easily put in special requests. If you see a model you like, but not in a leather you want, just contact them and ask if they can make it. Chances are they can. I’m a particularly big fan of their horse-front leather, which I find to have the luster of shell, and sightly more durability than calf (a bit more scratch and scuff resistant, though not as much as shell). It’s also just feels really rich to the touch. 

(Photo by Sean Hotchkiss)

We Got It For Free: Chester Mox Wallets

Chester Mox recently got in some very interesting leathers. They asked me to review some of them, so I selected a couple of designs to be made out of their new materials. 

The first is Japanese shell cordovan. There is a very small supply of this leather in the world and only a few tanneries are able to get it. The most famous is Horween out of Chicago, but there are tanneries in Japan and Argentina as well. The difference is in the liquors they use and how thick their skins are. Japanese shells, for example, come in black and a natural tone that slowly darkens over time. They’re also slightly thinner than the Horweens I’ve handled, which means they’re a bit more pliable. Aside from that, compared alongside my Horween shell wallets, I saw no difference in quality (at least for the purposes of a wallet). Perhaps most exciting of all, Japanese shell is cheaper, which means shell cordovan products like these will be more affordable for the final consumer. 

The second new leather, called Essex, is from Horween. It’s a cowhide that has been tanned in the liquor Horween uses for shell cordovan. They’ve been developing this technique for about two or three years, and the results are pretty marvelous. The full-grained leather is very rich to the touch and has a beautiful, slightly variegated, color to it. The color was hard to capture with my camera, but it’s definitely now one of my favorite leathers from Horween.

You can get any of Chester Mox’s wallets made in these new materials. Just contact them for a price quote (shell will obviously be more expensive than calf). I should also note that I’ve found the stitching on these to be even better than before. They’re now using a slightly thinner thread, which I think makes for a cleaner appearance. And as always, they can also customize any wallet with an engraving. I usually request a simple monogram of my initials in the same font they use for their logo. 

For $50 You Can Buy …

It’s been a while since I did one of these entries, so I thought I’d make up for it by building an entire ensemble for fall, head-to-toe, out of things you can buy for under $50. 

• Shirt: Ralph Lauren Rugby has this “antique striped shirt” on sale for $49.99. I’m not crazy about Rugby’s designs when they have a bunch of collegiate stripes and emblems, but this one is simple enough. It also looks like it could go quite well with most casual ensembles.
• Pants: Sierra Trading Post has a bunch of Bill’s Khakis in a variety of colors and fabrics, and this vintage twill in olive would make for a nice fall chino. They cost $79.95 right now, but if you sign up for their DealFlyer newsletter, you’ll get their “special coupon” notices. Lately, they’ve been giving 35% off any one item, which brings these down to about $52 (hey, I’m just $2 off, cut me some slack). Depending on how skinny your legs are, these may need some tapering, however, so you should account for that cost. 
• Belt: Narragansett Leathers makes handsome, custom-made belts for under $50. They have a variety of styles, but I like their plain 1.25” belts the most. If you want something more unique, they also have double ring and hoof pick belts for about the same price.
• Shoes: It’s hard finding shoes for under $50! Obviously, if you’re willing to pay $100+, and look on eBay, then all sorts of decent options are available to you. For under $50, however, I’ll recommend these Land’s End chukkas. I’m not crazy about the stitching on the back quarters of the shoe, but they’re advertised as being full grain leather, and only cost $49.95. 
• Wallet: I really like Chester Mox wallets. They’re completely handmade, built from Horween leather, and produced by a family in Los Angeles that has been working with leather for over a decade. Right now they’re running a promotion where they’ll etch your name or initials into the wallet for free (use the code FREEPRSLZ at the end of the Paypal checkout process). They have a bunch of designs for under $50, but this model only costs $35. A customized, handmade wallet for $35 ain’t bad.
• Watch: Big faced Timex, you got two of those. Well, at least that’s how many you can have for $50. Get the Easy Reader model for $20.24 on Overstock.com. If that one sells out, just check out their other Timex options. Many of them can be had for about $25 each.
• Socks: You can get a pair of Gold Toe socks for about $3 at Belt Outlet. Read my review of them here.
• Key fob: This is a bit of a superfluous purchase, but the leather is 225 years old, and it was found at the bottom of a sunken ship! For $24, it’s a pretty cool thing to carry around. You can read more about the special leather in this old article I wrote. 

There we have it. Head-to-toe everything you need for fall, and nearly every item costs less than $50. It’s not the most sartorial of looks, but not bad for a budget. 

Chester Mox: My Favorite Wallet Company

I know I’ve complained about how bloggers abuse superlatives. Everything is either epic and grail, or an essential that no man should go without. I’ll try to refrain from using those terms, but I’m genuinely really excited about this announcement. 

So a while ago, I wrote about VooDoo Studios, a leather goods company that I found while searching for a cheaper version of Makr’s angle wallet. The company really impressed me. VooDoo Studios was making handcrafted wallets out of Horween leathers, and selling them for about half the price that their competitors were. The family behind the company has twelve years of professional experience working with leather, so I had faith in the workmanship. By all accounts, it was the same beautiful, high-quality wallet that their competitors were selling, but instead of charging $80, these were $35. Yes, $35 for a Horween leather wallet, completely handmade by people who have been doing it for over a decade. 

After I excitedly contacted the company about doing a story on them, they nicely offered to send me three of their wallets to try out. I’ve been meaning to rotate through them, so that I could do a fair review on each, but I admit that I’ve been so smitten with the angle wallet that it’s gotten a bit more use than the others.

I especially like the angle wallet they sent me not just because of the design, but also the material: horse front leather, which is taken from the horse’s hips, just north of the horse’s rump (where shell cordovan is from). As I wrote earlier, I find horse front to be the “poor man’s shell cordovan.” It has a lot of luster and depth in the color, like shell, but to a lesser degree. It’s also very dense and a bit waxy, again like shell, but it doesn’t resist scratching or scuffing in the same way. Still, I like it much better than calf. When you touch it, you just get a sense of richness in the leather (though, of course, Horween’s calf leather is pretty damn amazing as well). The wallet has been wearing beautifully and I’m very happy with it. Of the various “menswear items” I own, this is one of my favorites. 

There was one thing that I didn’t care for though - the name of the company and logo on my wallet. For the amazing price point, however, I was willing to live with it. Still, I decided to give some constructive feedback to the company, and to my absolute surprise, they’ve been very open to my suggestions. 

So … I have some announcements. 

• First, the company’s name has been changed to Chester Mox. It’s a name they choose, and I think it’s much better than the old name. Chester is the name of one of the family’s grandfathers, and Mox is a fuel that one of owners has been fascinated by. 
• Second, there is a new logo. I think it’s much more handsome than the old one. This is the logo that will be used for any wallets sold from now on. Some of the pictures on the website still have the old VooDoo Studios logo, but those pictures will be updated shortly to reflect the change. 
• Third, if a customer requests it, a completely logoless wallet can be made. Kind of nice for those who don’t like branding on their items. 
• Fourth (here’s the part I’m really excited about), the company has a new personalization service for all items. Thus, instead of their logo, you can choose to have your wallet etched with anything you want - your name, initials, a short message, anything - for $10. You can choose the font and size of the etching, and have it be placed anywhere you want. I’ve included a picture of a sample they made. Personally, I’ll admit, I’m not crazy about the font this particular customer choose. I would recommend just going with the font and size of their Chester Mox text, but request that it be your initials or something. However, it’s your wallet, so it’s your choice. 
• Fifth, they have some new customization options for the thread. Black nylon is the default, but you can also choose cream nylon or cream waxed linen. The personalized wallet I’ve shown above has cream waxed linen thread.

I’ll admit, before these changes, I was still hoping to maybe upgrade to a Bottega Veneta or Ettinger wallet one day.  The new changes, however, make Chester Mox my favorite wallet company. The whole idea of having my initials being handsomely put onto the wallet, instead of a company logo, is just really, really cool. And you really can’t beat the prices. I’m already thinking about getting one for a friend’s upcoming birthday. 

As a thanks to me for helping them out, the company is offering readers here a special discount. You can either get free shipping or free personalization with your order if you mention my name (Derek Guy). Just email the company after you’ve placed an order and they’ll adjust your final price. Check out their website and see which models you like.