Rothy's New Accessories Are Built to Take a Beating—and a Trip Through the Washing Machine
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below."
When’s the last time you washed your wallet? Never? I’m guessing never, and I’m not judging, because that’s my answer, too. But considering how many times a day you touch it—pulling it out of your pocket, laying it down and picking it up from a countertop, thumbing through it for cash or cards—there’s a very reasonable argument to be made that your wallet could use a bath. Ditto that for your bag, especially if you’re the kind of person who’ll drop it haphazardly on the sidewalk or the floor when you pull up a chair to meet a buddy for coffee or a beer (again, guilty).
Admittedly, I’d never really thought about this before chatting with Chris Hull, SVP at Rothy’s, about the brand’s new accessories, which launch today. He’d just returned to his home in Utah after a business trip to New York, where, among the meetings and dinners and everything else, he was putting a sample of the new Carryall tote bag to the test. The conclusion? After all that handling and hanging out on the ground, “it’s nice to come home and be able to wash it,” Hull says.
It’s a simple thing, sure, but it’s informed by a lot of materials science. Rothy’s signature was, at one point, knitted women’s shoes. At this point—after adding women’s accessories, men’s shoes, and now men’s accessories to the mix—it’s really the stuff all that other stuff is made out of: a flexible-but-durable thread made from repurposed plastic bottles (sometimes with the addition of marine plastics).
“Our material, our recycled plastic—what we call RPET—because it’s machine washable, and because it’s knit to shape, plays really well into this category,” Hull explains. The shape can be a wallet or a tote or a sneaker; regardless, the construction eliminates the need to cut and sew separate elements together, drastically reducing waste. And because the resulting material happens to be both resilient and pliable, it’s an impressive stand-in for leather, as long as you’re trying to mimic the way it functions more than the look of it.
Knowing that, Hull and the rest of the Rothy’s crew decided to follow a reworked version of the template that did so well on the women’s side and expand beyond shoes into accessories for men. The lineup includes the Carryall, a card case, a bifold wallet, and a laptop portfolio. All of them are built to accommodate real-life needs—a zipper on the bag runs vertically, making it easier to open and close on the go, and the wallet features a half-length slot for folded cash, keeping more space open for cards—and rendered with a distinctly toned-down vibe. These are, after all, the kinds of everyday essentials most guys reach for on the regular. They need to mesh with everything else that’s in your closet. And if they can get thrown in the wash with that stuff, too? Well, all the better.
You Might Also Like
