Spinnaker Fabric Business Model

This morning on NPR I heard a story that demonstrates, at least to me, why sailing cloth is some of the best engineered fabric in the world. The piece is about entrepreneur Cindy Whitehawk (and her husband) – for seven years they’ve been selling wallets made of spinnaker cloth, a choice of fabric that allows them to claim billfolds as “thin as a dime.” Not only does the sailing fabric make wallets of distinctive thinness, it also “breathes” and repels body moisture, rain, spills, etc. Listen to the replay on NPR here – some recent publicity has overwhelmed their two person “All-Ett”shop and now they have more order than they can fill. Sailmakers have made wallets and duffels for years but these two have obviously perfected the form. File in the “I wish I thought of that” folder.