I first noticed the Mywalit brand last summer in Italy. We were in Tuscany on an extended trip for my mother’s and mother-in-law’s combined 80th birthday celebrations. As we made our way from village to village, one leather goods company kept grabbing my attention.
Founded in Lucca in 2005, Mywalit makes designer leather wallets, bags, coin purses and handbags, but with a color pop that makes them stand apart from the status quo. The company’s first shop was situated in Lucca’s old Roman Amphitheatre, in the shopping district of the historic Tuscan town, though the brand sensibility was always modern and playful. The first products were colorful purses and wallets and the line has since extended to a rainbow-hued selection of handbags, travel accessories, computer cases and office organizers. The products are now made in Thailand.
I finally got my wife a Mywalit wallet for Mother’s Day this year. The 12 CC Zip Wallet has a central zipped section for coins with card slots on either side that easily attach with snaps. The supple Nappa leather and bold color combinations — bright azures and reds and yellows — add pizazz to everyday life, even if it’s the simple act of paying for groceries on a random Tuesday.
It’s a product that makes people happy and the feeling is contagious. My wife’s sister saw the wallet and bought one herself, which prompted their mutual friend, Lisa, to do the same, which in turn made Lisa’s sister buy one as a graduation gift for her niece; and who knows where it ends? Think of it as the butterfly effect of beautiful design.
I imagined an ebullient Italian behind all those colorful Mywalit products, but it’s actually a Brit. Chris Howell had retired from a well-known international leather company, and kept thinking about how most wallets are only offered in brown, black and perhaps cognac or beige. Howell fell in love with the lively colors around Lucca, and thought what an ingenious idea it would be to introduce a wallet line with beautiful and unusual leathers that could make people smile whenever they reached for them. There’s also a practical component. The brighter the wallet, the easier it is to actually find it in your purse.
Mywalit products are available internationally via the website and at retail stores. A company spokesperson tells me the three bestsellers are the three-pocket credit card holder with a transparent window on the reverse for an ID ($25), the “matinee” wallet that holds a checkbook, most cellphones and a pen ($125), and the double-flap purse wallet ($119), pictured above, that’s monochromatic on the outside but colorful within. It’s a little like a wallet version of that door-opening scene from The Wizard of Oz. Say it, now: “There’s no place like Lucca, there’s no place like Lucca.”
