If you're stumped for an appropriate Christmas gift for a man in your life, think about getting him a wallet. Then discard the thought.
"They don't look right," says Rob Wigington, a 27-year-old graphic designer in Toronto. "When I'm sitting or walking, it's really annoying having that weight or that bulge and pull. I can't even move. My pants are too tight."
With men's clothes getting slimmer and snugger, the George Constanza-style pocket burger is going the way of the watch fob. At hip Montreal-based chain m0851 ( ), for example, style-conscious guys are snapping up tiny leather billfolds the size of a credit card or leather envelopes that loop onto the belt. Some designers are even altering clothes to accommodate the wallet-less, with slots for credit cards being incorporated into suit jackets and ties. The ScotteVest gadget tie, for example, is a silk number with a discreet pocket for your cash and cards.
The demise of the wallet has become a lively topic of discussion on the Internet. A message board on lifehacker.com has suggested using a cigarette case or the All-Ett, a super-slim wallet made of sailcloth ( ; ), as well as offering terrible advice like attaching everything to your belt.
On the blog darrenbroadfoot.com there's an exchange on wallet alternatives that ends with the comment: "I'm less organized now but at least my ass looks great."
Wigington is defiantly wallet-free. "All I carry are a bank card and folded bills," he says. "I carry my keys and cellphone around in my hand."
If he needs to carry more than his pockets can conceal, the job falls to his girlfriend's purse.
Even in the business world, a fat wallet isn't the status symbol of yore.
"I attribute it to business casual," says Rob Mulvale, 30, who works in corporate real estate and has been wallet-free for seven years. "When you have a suit jacket, you have more options to hide the thing. The second I stopped wearing a suit, I said, 'Forget it.' "
Mulvale has settled on a leather card pouch from Roots and folded bills in his pocket.
Other things men used to keep on hand are staying home too. Debit cards have made exact change a quaint notion, Mulvale argues, banishing coins to a jar on the fridge. "I don't think people carry around pictures of their family any more," he adds. "It's a sign of a decline of the family unit."
Josh Rachlis, 33, has tried going out with bills, a bank card and a credit card in an elastic band, but he's still attached to his wallet. "You can't make a purchase without an Air Miles card," he says. "And there's coupons. It's all useful."
But to hear women tell it, Rachlis's instinct to dump the lump is bang on.
"I hate the look of a big, fat, stuffed-with-every-receipt-since-childhood wallet," Toronto writer Buffy Childerhose says. "Most men are wearing jeans, so not only do they have the big lump, they look like they have some deformity on their ass. They get that line that wears into the denim, stuffing this thing the size of a Big Mac into their pants."
She says it's a mistake that can wreck an outfit. "My old boyfriend had this shadow on all his jeans. Otherwise a well-dressed man with his sartorial ducks in a row, but he doesn't pay attention to it because it's on his butt and he can't see it."
Childerhose says men have plenty of options. "Great steps have been made in socially acceptable handbags in the past 15 years," she says, referring to what's now known as the "man bag."
But Mulvale disagrees. "The one thing about the wallet is it's very heterosexual. I don't want to carry around the European carry-all. My friend has one, but he doesn't purge it. It's jammed. He's got a damn purse."