Monos Slim Wallet Review

Monos is a brand most travelers probably know best for its luggage, such as the Expandable Carry-On and Hybrid Carry-On. But in this review, we’re taking a look at their more pint-sized offering: the Monos Slim Wallet. Like its luggage, it has a very classy-looking design, spearheaded by its vegan leather material and tastefully topped off with a debossed logo.

On the other hand, it is still a very minimalist wallet, so compromises lurk just around the corner, especially if you’re coming from a regular-sized wallet. So, does the Monos Slim Wallet have what it takes to win you over? Let’s find out.

The Rundown

The Monos Slim Wallet’s main material is vegan leather, and the entire wallet’s aesthetic revolves around that. The stitching, the painted edges, and even the twill fabric inside are either color-matched or of a similar shade to the leather. That said, since it’s vegan leather, it won’t develop a patina the same way natural leather will. So, if you’re hoping for that heritage, worn-out look in a few years, you’re not getting it here. The debossed logo is also fairly large and not as subtle as some branding on other minimalist wallets, though we don’t mind it too much.

Meanwhile, Monos opts for a cotton twill fabric for the interior’s liner. It’s interesting, to say the least, since other minimalist leather wallets go with an all-leather design. Do we like it? It’s a welcome change of pace, to be sure, but we’re more impressed by the fact that there’s no loose stitching anywhere.

The layout is fairly simple and straightforward. There’s a lone slip pocket on the outside for your most-often-used card. Then, inside, there are two more slip pockets facing each other. We can fit two cards in each, though we can also squeeze up to three on the left one. In practice, this means one card outside, four cards on the inside, plus an additional card-shaped smart tracker inside the left slip pocket.

There’s no real problem that arose during actual usage and testing. Apart from the caveat of only having a max of five or six cards, you’ll have the most trouble with the vegan leather’s out-of-the-box tightness. Cards sit fairly snuggly inside, so when it’s time to pull them out, you have to put in the effort, especially for the ones stacked with another card.

One small nitpick about the design is how the wallet gets this tent-like triangular shape once it’s packed out. We’ve deduced that this is because of the stitched seam in the middle, bringing the tightly packed pockets too close together, thus causing the shape. In practice, this means the two halves don’t quite meet, instead being pried apart, so the wallet doesn’t fully close. That said, it’s not a big deal once the wallet is in your pocket, thus forcibly closed.

Packability

You’ll have no problems fitting the Monos Slim Wallet in most pockets, even in tight-fitting jeans. That said, the fully loaded setup we mentioned above does feel like it’s pushing the limits of this wallet. So, if you want a more streamlined, slimmer setup, you could lessen the load and only put one card in each slot and a smart tracker in the third.

Of course, this emphasizes the Monos Slim Wallet’s biggest weakness: capacity. At best, you’re packing six cards with a sweet spot of only three. Does the wallet’s slim size and vegan leather construction compensate? We’ll let you be the judge.

Quick Comparison

The Bellroy Card Slip further proves the point. Forgoing the Monos Slim Wallet’s bifold design, it is more of a back-to-back card organizer, with two slots at the front and one slot at the back. And since it’s not a bifold, there’s a noticeable difference in overall thickness between the two wallets.

The tradeoff is that the Bellroy Card Slip has an even more limited capacity of just four cards. Then again, if you’re a bit disappointed with the Monos Slim Wallet’s limited capacity despite it being a bifold, then the Bellroy option might feel like the more optimal design.