Keep it simple. Keep it tight. For designer Jack Sutter and his Brooklyn-based company, TGT (pronounced “tight”), that’s the motto. It’s important to keep that in mind to understand their line of wallets, from form to function. They remain the most successful Kickstarter-funded wallets to date, giving rise to plenty of competing minimalist wallets vying to ride the waves they’ve made. In this review, I look at the wallets from a carry-centric perspective to see if they’re as successful in an EDC as they were on Kickstarter.
Specs
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2.25 in. x 2.75 in.
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8.0 g empty weight
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Premium Italian lambskin leather pocket
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Elastic canvas sleeve
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Handmade in the USA
Design, Fit & Finish
Keep it simple. That, it does. At first glance, their best-selling Americana 2.0 Wallet looks like little more than a small, streamlined piece of canvas with a leather pocket in front. But after stuffing some cash and a few cards into it, you’ll find it’s quite a clever, minimalist design. As you might expect from a minimalist wallet, every non-functional fraction of an inch is shaved from its dimensions, unnecessary bulk is cut down, and what’s left is simultaneously barebones and attractive. Aside from extensive organization, you don’t feel like you’re “losing” much from a design this minimal. It’s simple but not sloppy in execution. Instead, it strikes a great balance of premium and casual, I think in part due to the tasteful color ways and quality materials used throughout. The canvas backing is soft but not flimsy. The Italian lambskin leather pocket? Butter.
Performance & Operation
Quality canvas backing leaves cards partially exposed, but also easy to access with a push or a tug.
Keep it tight. It delivers on that too. You slide cards into the elastic canvas, which has enough give to accommodate a higher number of cards, but can also snap back to fit snugly around just a few. The texture of the canvas was another big win for the wallet, as it’s grippy enough for your fingers but smooth enough for cards to slide out only when you want them to, unlike minimalist wallets that fight you with tight, death-grip rubber bands for retention. Since there’s no “bottom” to the wallet, cards can be pushed out using your thumb or pulled up from the top. Either way, I found myself sliding the whole stack out just to grab a card anyway, since there’s no real individual card organization.
Tri-folding will turn a few bills thick quick, making stowing cash not so tight.
If you like to carry some cash, you can do that by folding a note in half, then in half again, and stuffing the tri-folded cash in the lambskin pocket. It definitely keeps it tight — maybe too tight for me, personally. On several occasions at the register, if I’m given more than a few bills in change, I reluctantly stuff the notes into my front pocket and sort it out later.
This is where the TGT Wallet encourages minimalism on you. The wallet’s tight and simple design unfortunately makes stowing small bills not trivial. It’s a tradeoff in ease of use that you might find in a traditional bifold for its extremely small footprint. I’d recommend keeping larger bills or emergency cash in there only. The extra slant pocket on their Deluxe models offers another layer of organization, but I feel it’s better suited for small essentials like a key, coin, or (micro)SD card.
Carry Options
Buttery goodness on their “Prado” deluxe wallet after weeks of daily carry.
This wallet is small. Rivaling a money clip, even. The buttery lambskin front, not-too-grippy canvas back and overall thin profile make it a comfortable front pocket carry. Better yet, it’ll play nice with the rest of your gear, so you can go on ahead and slide your phone behind it without worry of scratches. If I had any complaints about pocketing this thing, is that it might be too small, to the point where I’m digging way deep into my pocket only to inadvertently slide out my cards from the top of the wallet, rather than pulling the whole thing out as intended.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
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Impressively compact. Simple. Tight.
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Quality materials (read: butter)
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Comfortable in hand and in pocket
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Attractive designs and colors
Cons:
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Tri-folding bills into the cash pocket is a chore
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Lackluster features and organization
Wrapping Up
Keep it simple. Keep it tight. It’s worth repeating because it so accurately describes this wallet, in both its triumphs and in its faults. It’s a minimalist wallet for people who still want familiar textures, like leather and canvas instead of aluminum and carbon fiber. Given its premium materials and construction, I’d say it’s priced fairly, and there are enough color options to find something to match your style. Ultimately, it’s not perfect, especially when faced with even a modest wad of cash. However, it does so many things right by not straying far from simplicity. I can definitely see why TGT has so many fans.
Disclosure: TGT graciously provided these wallet samples for the purpose of this review at no charge. However, this doesn’t affect my opinion of the wallets! This post also uses affiliate links, which helps keep this site running.
