Ever since I first introduced the Soft Shell wallets, I’ve wanted to add additional colors. But since I have this material custom produced, this introduces a couple of challenges…

First is the requirement that I order A LOT of it. Unlike most traditional fabrics where a distributor sells a few yards or rolls to product manufacturers, I have this material custom produced so need to buy the whole production run or literally a “lot" ;) 

The second challenge is that I can’t see what the colors will look like before I produce the material. Usually you can order swatches, which are small pieces of a material in the colors which are available. Then you just pick the color you like. Instead, I need to define a custom color to be produced. When I did this for the first time producing gray, it was a bit nerve wracking, but once I began to understand the process it actually was pretty cool to basically create exactly what I want.

As I started considering colors, I wanted something subtle and sophisticated, yet with just a bit of a pop of style. As it happened, I was really drawn to the blue of the shirt of one of my favorite tennis players Kei Nishikori so I special ordered it from Japan.
Kei Nishikori

As described in this post about defining our Charcoal color, I have the opportunity to send the factory physical objects as reference colors, then thy'll will produce a “lab dip” based on their color formula which most closely approximates it. At first glance it looks like a normal dark blue, but there are hints of other colors, which are brought out when accent stitching is applied, especially orange (like the collar of the shirt). So I sent this shirt in and waited for the lab dip results…

If you’ve ever tried to color match something, even just with an eye dropper in Photoshop, you know that there ends up being a range of colors so two lab dips were produced to cover this range and I was able to choose between them. Once I put my orange accent thread down on one of them, I knew I had a winner.

The Navy/Orange Soft Shell wallets are now in stock in both Original and MICRO sizes. MICRO RFID and Original RFID are also available for pre-order. They’ll ship out by Oct. 12th or sooner.
Or you can win one NOW for free! Just enter below and we’ll select the winner in a week.

Navy Giveaway 2

I’m really happy with the new Navy addition to the Soft Shell line… and I was careful to select the tone so it also goes well with the current Charcoal and Black products so you can easily mix and match with the Slim Pack.

Would you like to see Soft Shell come in additional colors? Let me know in the comments below!