Michael Kors Cooper Logo Billfold Wallet With Passcase Black

Recipe one, office: black wallet, black belt, black derbies, navy or grey suiting, and the passcase pulled forward for the building access card so you are not fanning a wallet open at a turnstile. Recipe two, travel: keep cards and cash in the billfold, put the passcase in a jacket chest pocket with your ID for the airport, and you have split the risk across two pockets. Carry it front pocket rather than back if you sit for long stretches, since sustained pressure warps the spine of any bifold and cracks the fold line early. Do not overstuff the card slots: four to six cards keeps it flat. Wipe with a dry cloth and keep it away from radiators and car dashboards.

Michael Kors reached the public through television more than through subculture. The founder judged Project Runway on Bravo for five seasons before leaving in December 2012, which put a designer's face and voice in front of a mass audience that had never followed a runway show, and it made the name legible in exactly the places where a first proper wallet gets bought as a gift. The industry recognition ran alongside it: a CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 and a place on the Time 100 in 2013. A men's billfold sits at the accessible end of all that, which is precisely the position the brand chose for itself.

This is a bifold with a removable passcase, which means two pieces that live as one: the outer billfold with its card slots and full length note compartment, and a slim insert you can pull out for a licence, an office card or a transit pass. The logo appears across the body as the house signature rather than as a stamped badge. The value of the passcase design is that the card you show most often never makes you open the whole wallet at a counter or a gate. Black hides the scuffing that back pocket carry inevitably causes better than any other colour, which is why it stays the default in this category rather than a lack of imagination.