Traditional Kangaroo Leather Wallets

The familiar shapes — bifolds and trifolds — in leather that lasts.
A traditional wallet gives you the capacity a minimalist one deliberately gives up: more card slots, a full-length note section, and room for the things you carry but don’t use every day. The trade-off is bulk, and kangaroo leather is how you keep that trade-off small. These fold flatter than the cowhide equivalent because the leather can be thinner without losing strength.
The Killara and Turrella are bifolds, the Redfern is a trifold, and there’s a plain Kangaroo Leather Bifold if you’d rather not have a suburb name on it.
All of them are cut from a single hide where possible so the colour matches across panels, saddle-stitched by hand, and finished with burnished, beeswaxed edges. Full-grain veg-tan leather darkens as it’s used — sunlight and the oils on your hands do the work — so it’ll look better in a year than it does on the day it arrives.
Made to order in your choice of leather and thread colour.

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Which one holds what

All four are the same leather and the same stitching. What separates them is how much they carry and how they fold. The dimensions below are the actual cash pocket sizes, because that is what decides whether your notes fit.

WalletFoldCard pocketsCards it holdsCash pocket
KillaraLarge bifold6, plus 2 utilityUp to 1288 × 200 mm
TurrellaBifold4Up to 873 × 200 mm
Kangaroo Leather BifoldBifold4, plus 2 utilityUp to 873 × 200 mm
RedfernTrifold4, one hidden in the cash slotUp to 7Full-width centre slot

The Killara is the one to pick if you carry a lot and want it all in one place. The Turrella and the Kangaroo Leather Bifold are the classic shapes. The Redfern is a trifold with a smaller footprint than either bifold, which is why people carry it in a front pocket.

A note on euro notes

Worth reading before you order if you are outside Australia, because it is the one thing that catches people out.

The Killara has an 88 mm cash pocket, which takes euro notes of every denomination, along with Australian, US and Canadian dollars. The Redfern trifold has a full-width centre slot that handles almost any note issued anywhere, euros included.

The Turrella and the Kangaroo Leather Bifold are 73 mm. That suits Australian, US and Canadian notes, but larger euro denominations sit taller than that and will stand proud of the pocket. If you spend in euros, take the Killara or the Redfern.

Why kangaroo, not cowhide

Kangaroo leather is the strongest leather for its weight you can buy. The fibre structure runs more uniformly than cattle hide and there is far less of the loose, weak material that sits under the surface of a cow skin.

The practical consequence is that it does not need splitting down to become workable. A cowhide wallet is usually made from leather that has been sliced thinner, which removes the dense outer grain where the strength lives. Kangaroo keeps its full grain at a thickness that is already thin enough to work with.

So a kangaroo wallet with the same capacity as a cowhide one sits flatter in your pocket, and it wears in rather than wearing out. Ours is full-grain and vegetable tanned — tanned with tree bark tannins rather than chromium salts, which is why it darkens and takes on a patina over years instead of simply scuffing.

Made in Rockdale, Sydney

Every wallet on this page is cut, saddle stitched and burnished by hand in one workshop in Rockdale, in Sydney's south. Nothing is made in advance — your wallet is cut after you order it, in the leather and thread colours you choose.

Saddle stitching is two needles and one thread, with every stitch locked. It is considerably slower than a machine, and the reason for it is simple: a machine lockstitch unravels from a single broken stitch, and a saddle stitch does not. If one stitch fails, the rest hold.

Standard postage within Australia is free and tracked. International orders go out with Australia Post and their partner carriers.

Common questions

How many cards fit comfortably?

Between 7 and 12 depending on the wallet — the table above gives the figure for each. Those numbers are for comfortable everyday carry, not the absolute maximum. Kangaroo leather stretches slightly to the shape of what you keep in it over the first few weeks, so a wallet that feels snug at first settles.

Is kangaroo leather actually stronger than cowhide?

Yes, at the same thickness. That is a property of the fibre structure rather than a marketing claim, and it is why the material is used for things like motorcycle leathers and football boots.

Can I have it personalised?

Yes, on every wallet here. Characters are stamped exactly as you type them, so check your spelling — leather cannot be unstamped.

How long until it arrives?

One to two weeks to make, then the post. Personalised pieces sit at the longer end of that. If you need something by a particular date, email first and you will get an honest answer about whether it is possible.

What if something goes wrong with it?

If a piece is faulty or not as described, it gets repaired or replaced and the return postage is covered. There is no arbitrary deadline on that — a hand-stitched full-grain wallet should last years, and if a seam fails after eight months that is worth hearing about. See Returns & Refunds for the detail.

What else is there?

If these are more wallet than you need, the minimalist wallets carry four or five cards and disappear in a front pocket. There are also passport wallets, braided bracelets and notebook covers in the same leather.