The London Lounge

Is there a traditionally correct place to have one's initals monogrammed on a breast wallet? The wallet in question is dark green leather. My thoughts are to put the initials on the outside, bottom righthand corner, or inside, also bottom righthand corner.

Also, simple embossing, or gold leaf?

Matt

Whilst you have already made a decision as reported elsewhere, the commonly used point is the bottom right outside - doubtless with gold.

However far more subtle and in better taste is inside without infill - your choice in fact so, yes, you opted well on what is a very attractive wallet.

Here are the results, in case anyone's interested:

In case I want to have my own stupid discussion with a sales clerk, what model is this?

Concordia wrote:In case I want to have my own stupid discussion with a sales clerk, what model is this?

Flemming wallet, in Laurier green.

Matt

That is a lovely shade of green. Thanks for posting the pictures.

Michael

I have always steered clear of monograms, thinking them to be a bit gaudy..it brings to mind Jeeves asking Bertie Wooster had he a tendency to forget his name. But I have to say the plain embossing without coloured or (worse) gold lettering, is extremely stylish and understated. I would take a leaf from your (pocket)book ! A lovely wallet, by the way and thanks for sharing.

Dear Mafoofan:

That is a nicely made wallet. In the days of credit cards, and even scanning one's phone, sometimes a check is still required. That wallet looks like it will fit the bill quite nicely.

The monograms are a nice touch without being overdone, and yet it says, it's mine.

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

Mafoofan,

The wallet looks very delicate and the green shade beautiful but like Rowly I'm not fond of the monogram. To me most monograms are empty ornamentation or kitsch that kills real style. Putting a monogram on your shirt or wallet is a bit like using perfume. Pure adornment and affectation. Grooming shouldn't be much more than a bath, a good shave and fresh fine linen

I tend to think of the monogram as akin to the vermouth in a good martini....less is more

I decidedly disagree about martinis here, but may I ask, not sneeringly but seriously, what the use of the monogram is here? Hardly to send it back to one if one loses it - the information wouldn't be enough, and chances are there'll be things inside that are better suited for this purpose. The weekly laundry in school?

I think Mafoofan's wallet is very understated and stylish. As far as monograms go, I think his choice is also understated and discreetly placed on the inside. As far as I remember, this was a gift from a Lady, and so the recipient could hardly be accused of affectation. I hope it gives many years of pleasure!..Rowly.

I agree on both accounts, as well as on your wishes to Mafoofan. I simply wondered whether such a monogram had any function. (Obviously, not all the details of what we have and wear are purely functional, unless you count pleasing us and the like.)

Edward Bainbridge wrote:I simply wondered whether such a monogram had any function.

Certainly. Should the wallet happen to slip from the wearer's dinner-suit pocket while spreading his overcoat over a puddle for a lady to cross, the monogram would easily allow him to distinguish his own wallet from the other Laurier-green Flemmings that had slipped from the pockets of the other gallants similarly occupied.

Edward Bainbridge wrote:I agree on both accounts, as well as on your wishes to Mafoofan. I simply wondered whether such a monogram had any function. (Obviously, not all the details of what we have and wear are purely functional, unless you count pleasing us and the like.)

I think one function of it is that, a man rarely gets to make (what I would call) an elegant statement of vanity at a certain level of business or society. Really what function do working cuffs perform to non-19th century surgeons? The reason we pay attention to these details is because we can.

Just like so-called 'useless' information these details form part of a lexicon of cultural capital and exchange with other members of a peer group. Novels and films are full of stories of the parvenu, the con-man and nouveau riche who try to crack this code to a greater or lesser level of success, all the way from Great Expectations to the Great Gatsby, to Six Degrees of Separation. Great film by the way, a con-man tricks his way into the lives of two New York art dealers by arriving with a pot of handmade jam and pretending to be Sidney Poitier's son that their kids met at college!

So in my view they form part of an extremely complex social language. There's a world of difference between having the monogramme on the outside of the wallet as opposed to the inside, which I think all readers will appreciate. Any anthropologists on the forum at all?