Hitoe® L-zip L, the pioneer of small, slim long wallets

Even now, in this age of cashless transactions, there are still many people who prefer long wallets.
This is because it has appeals that bifold wallets do not have, such as the ability to store bills without folding them, the ease of organizing receipts and tickets, and the graceful action of taking them out.

On the other hand, to keep up with the times, many wallets called "compact long wallets" or "small long wallets" have appeared.
However, most of them are merely designed to be as close as possible to the size of a traditional long wallet, a 10,000 yen bill.

Here, we will talk about the structural challenges that "small long wallets" face and SYRINX's ideal "small, thin long wallet" that was born from these challenges.

---

Structural problems with "small long wallets"

Many of the currently popular "small long wallets" are designed to be as close as possible to the size of a 10,000 yen bill.

At first glance, this structure appears to be ideal and efficient, but it poses several dilemmas.

First of all, with a height of 10,000 yen, it is difficult to prevent coins and cards from overlapping, which increases the thickness when stored.
(Card 54mm + 500 yen coin 26.5mm > 10,000 yen bill 76mm)
Another problem is the placement of the cards.
At first glance, you might think, "If I distribute the cards to the left and right, the thickness will also be distributed."
However, if you try to move the cards around inside a 10,000 yen bill, you will find that it is not that simple.
The dark red central band in the image below indicates the area that will be covered no matter where you place the card.

In other words, as long as the wallet is the size of a 10,000 yen bill, all the cards will overlap in this central area. In other words, a "small long wallet" cannot fundamentally avoid being thick.

As a result, the number of cards that can realistically be stored is limited to a few.

If you only need a few cards, there's no need to go to the trouble of using a long wallet.
Bifold wallets, such as the Hitoe® Fold , are superior in both portability and convenience.

For this reason, SYRINX did not aim to create a "small long wallet the size of a 10,000 yen bill," but instead fundamentally rethought what a long wallet should be.

Reinventing the long wallet: "Small, thin long wallet"

The ideal that SYRINX arrived at was not just to reduce the external dimensions, but to create a "small, thin long wallet" that was significantly thinner while maintaining the storage capacity appropriate for a long wallet.

To achieve this, in 2019 we came up with a structure called the "double card pocket (registered design)," which divides cards into two L-shaped sections, reducing the thickness by half.
In other words, it has a structure that allows for approximately twice the card storage capacity with the same thickness.

Only 10mm when stored

The Hitoe® L-zip L has double card pockets,
Even when storing [8 cards, 10 bills, and 10 coins], the thickness is only 10mm.
Even if you add up to 16 cards, it's still only 13mm.
The base remains at 10mm, making it incredibly thin.

A new lineage beginning to spread across the market

In 2019, the Hitoe® L-zip L, which features double card pockets, received a great response, and long wallets incorporating a similar concept began appearing on the market in 2025.

Many products have been modified, such as placing the coin pocket at the bottom of the card slot instead of the top, out of consideration for SYRINX's intellectual property rights.

In any case, even in the world of small long wallets, a new lineage of "small, thin long wallets" influenced by double card pockets is beginning to spread.

Two origins of "small and thin"

Hitoe® Fold has created a new category of "Slim Bifold Wallets" in the world of bifold wallets.
Hitoe® L-zip L has become the starting point for a new category of "small, thin long wallets" in the world of long wallets.

By thinking logically rather than intuitively, one can go beyond preconceived notions.
"Slim Bifold Wallets" and "small, thin long wallets" are new areas that SYRINX has created from this thinking.

(Text by Hirotaka Sato, CEO and designer of SYRINX)