The Tenuis zipper and flap styles—marketed as slim, compact wallets—feature a construction that’s more challenging to produce than their appearance suggests. In this post, I’ll use an actual product as a model to briefly introduce some of the sewing processes involved around the twin card slots. It’s rare to find a men’s bifold wallet with such a complex structure and manufacturing process, haha
. *The product shown in the photos is a finished item.
First, here’s the final stitching stage for the twin card slots—a signature feature of Tenuis. The stitching itself is hidden beneath the pocket.
Next, we move on to sewing the edges, which is one of the trickiest parts of the process. If we were to sew directly from the outside, we’d end up sewing through the card pocket, so we need to sew this section while keeping it folded over.
Similarly, on another edge, we must sew while keeping the card pocket folded. These two edges are sewn separately.
While maintaining this folded state, we sew from the cowhide surface side. We use a special sewing machine called a “hand-held sewing machine”; the photo was taken from below. Because the fold creates a step, even the slightest misalignment can occur easily, making this a task that requires extreme care.
This is what the front side looks like during the actual sewing process.
We have attempted to reproduce this process at factories and with artisans both in Japan and overseas, but it is not something that can be replicated just anywhere. This is an area where technical differences become clearly apparent, and even within Japan, there are only a limited number of factories and artisans capable of handling it.
For this reason, mass-producing Tenuis is difficult, and each piece is essentially crafted by hand, one at a time. As a result, production inevitably takes time, but this is an unavoidable step necessary to achieve this specific structure.
The following models feature this construction:
Tenuis Zipper Type (
Canvas)https://solahanpu.com/products/tenuis-zipper-canvas
Tenuis Zipper Type
https://solahanpu.com/products/tenuis-zipper
Tenuis Flap Type
https://solahanpu.com/products/tenuis-flap
