Leather Grace

By The Editors
August 14, 2013 9:00 am

Large wallets do you no favors.

Those butt-burnished billfolds, overstuffed with receipts and “Buy ten, get one free” coffee cards. You’re gonna dislocate your hip, man. And you look like you’re smuggling a melon in the seat of your pants.

We advise simplicity. We advise quality.

And thus we advise you have a look at Headlands Handmade, a Dana Point workshop selling fine leather wallets and more, online now.

Headlands is run by one Scott Goodman, a landscape architect who, weary of designing large and unwieldy projects like outdoor malls, began creating his own leather goods.

Simple and rugged. No nonsense, no corners cut.

Simply take a gander at his online shop and choose from the simple selection: wallets, a glasses case, a valet tray and a Dopp kit.

Then choose your leather — tanned with vegetable oil or Chromexcel — and your preffered thread color, and give Goodman two weeks to work his magic.

He sources his hides from two Midwestern companies that have been tanning since the turn of the century.

Now, here’s the thing with quality leather: you judge it on its thickness, color consistency and a tight grain. That’s what you get here.

As for how it’s tanned: vegetable tanning makes leather more durable. Fades well with age. Chrome-tanned leathers take dye better, but they’re not as rugged.

When it comes to wallets, either type holds a double sawbuck just fine.

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