The story behind the Nº1

There was a moment, standing at a café counter in Amsterdam's Jordaan, when I put my wallet on the table and realised it was thicker than my phone. That felt wrong.

I'd been trying to fix it for a while. Different shapes, different materials, a lot of unpicking and restitching. But the wallet I actually wanted to carry didn't exist. Everything was either too bulky, too flimsy to be practical, or made from materials that looked worn-out within a year.

The starting point: one strip of elastic

The idea for the Nº1 didn't start with a sketchbook. It started with a question: what is the absolute minimum a wallet needs to function?

Up to 15 cards. Folded bills. Maybe a transit card. Definitely no coins.

The answer was one strip of woven elastic, tensioned at exactly the right angle, stitched into shape by hand. The elastic holds everything in place, not by clamping down, but by giving slightly. Enough resistance to keep your cards secure, enough flex to get them out without a fight.

The name "28 Degrees" comes from the angle at which the elastic runs across the back of the wallet. That sounds more technical than it is. It's really about feel. That angle is what made everything sit right.

Elastic and thread. That's it.

The Nº1 is made of two things: a single strip of high-tension elastic, woven in Europe, and the thread that holds it together. No leather. No vegan leather. No panels, no patches.

That's the whole material list. The packaging it ships in is sourced in Europe too.

A shorter material list means a shorter supply chain. A shorter supply chain means you can stand behind it.

Hand-stitched in Amsterdam

Every wallet is hand-stitched by me, here in Amsterdam. There's no factory, no production line. I make them in small batches, checking each one myself. That takes more time. That's kind of the point.

The Nº1 isn't designed to look good in a product photo. It's designed to live with you. In your pocket. Every day.

What's changed, and what hasn't

After the first version, I made hundreds of Nº1s. Each batch taught me something. Stitch strength. Elastic tension. How much movement the cards need without falling out when you flip the wallet upside down.

Six models later, the Nº2, Nº3, Nº4, Nº6, and Nº7 alongside it, the Nº1 is still the most direct expression of the original idea. Minimal. Functional. Made and sourced in Europe.

If you're new to slim wallets, the Nº1 is the obvious place to start. If you've been carrying an overstuffed wallet for years, well, there's no better time to change that.