Our Crafting Process

Eighteen steps, one pair of hands, five to seven days. This is what happens between the moment you press Add to cart and the moment a strap leaves our workshop in Ha Noi.

Nothing here is unusual. Every one of these steps has been done the same way for a century, and none of them is a secret. What decides whether a strap is good is not knowing the steps — it is being willing to do all eighteen on a single strap that one person will wear, instead of skipping the four that no photograph would catch.

What a strap is made of

Four things, and no filler:

1. The outer leather — the hide you chose, cut so the grain runs down the wrist.
2. The Zermatt lining — soft and water-resistant, on the side that meets your skin. It is the layer that decides whether a strap is comfortable in July.
3. The seam — one waxed thread, saddle-stitched by hand through both layers. Not glue holding the strap together; the glue only holds it still while it is stitched.
4. The edge — sanded, burnished until the two layers read as one piece, then hand-painted in several thin coats to match the leather.

Some makers add a stiffener between the layers to hold a padded shape. We do not, unless you ask for a padded form — an unstiffened strap breaks in to your wrist instead of resisting it, and there is one less thing inside to come apart.

1 · Reading the hide

Steps 1–2 — read the hide, select the leather.

A hide is not a uniform sheet. It is firm along the spine and loose along the belly, and the same piece of leather will behave differently depending on where a strap is taken from. A strap cut from the wrong part of the hide stretches unevenly, and no amount of careful stitching later will fix it.

So the first job is to look. We mark where the grain runs tight enough to hold a burnished edge, avoid the stretch zones near the belly, and work around every scar the animal earned in its life. On an exotic skin the rule is stricter still: an alligator strap has to be cut so the scale pattern runs straight down the wrist and lands symmetrically either side of the case. That is often only one usable strap per belly.

2 · Cutting

Steps 3–4 — cut the blank, skive the edges.

The blank is cut with a knife against a steel rule, not stamped out with a die. A die is faster and it is how most straps are made, but a die cuts the same shape whatever the leather is doing that day, and it crushes the edge it cuts. A blade leaves an edge that can be finished.

Then the leather is skived — pared thinner along the fold and at the lug end — so the strap can bend where it needs to bend without a ridge under your wrist. Skiving is invisible in every photograph and is the difference between a strap that sits down and one that lifts at the edges after a month.

3 · Building the strap

Steps 5–7 — mark the stitch line, glue the layers, punch the holes.

The outer leather and the Zermatt lining are glued face to face before a single stitch goes in. The glue is not what holds the strap together — the stitching is — but it holds the two layers dead still while the holes are made, and two layers that shift by half a millimetre during stitching produce a strap that curls.

The stitch line is marked with a wheel, then the holes are punched with an iron: a chisel with evenly spaced teeth, struck through both layers at a constant angle. That angle is why hand stitching looks the way it does. The holes lean, so the thread leans, and the finished seam reads as a row of small diagonal marks rather than the flat dashes a machine leaves.

4 · The saddle stitch

Step 8 — saddle-stitch by hand.

This is the step that takes the longest and the one worth understanding.

A sewing machine makes a lock stitch: one thread on top, one underneath, knotted between the layers. It is fast and it is strong until it is cut. Cut a lock stitch anywhere and the seam unravels from that point, because the whole seam is one continuous loop.

A saddle stitch uses one thread and two needles, and every hole is passed through twice, from both directions. Each stitch is independent. Cut one and the two beside it hold, because nothing is looped through anything. A saddle-stitched seam that takes a knock at the lug does not open; it loses one stitch and carries on.

It cannot be done by machine. Not "we prefer not to" — the movement of two needles crossing inside one hole has no mechanical equivalent. That is the whole reason the step exists, and it is roughly an hour of the strap's life.

5 · Shaping and the edge

Steps 9–13 — trim the ends, shape the tip, sand, burnish, seal.

With the stitching in, the strap is trimmed to final length and the tip is shaped — rounded, pointed or square, whichever was chosen — and only now, because trimming before stitching leaves you no room to correct.

Then the edge, which is five steps of the eighteen and the fastest way to tell a made strap from an assembled one. Sanded through descending grits until the two layers read as one. Damped and burnished under friction until the fibres lie down and the edge takes a shine. Only then painted — several thin coats by hand, each one cut back before the next goes on.

Most workshops do one or the other. Burnishing alone leaves a beautiful edge that drinks water the first time you are caught in the rain. Painting alone lays colour over a rough edge and telegraphs every fibre it is meant to hide — that is the edge that cracks along the flex point and peels in a line six months later.

Burnishing first closes the fibres, so the paint has a compressed surface to key into instead of a furry one. Doing both is why the edge takes five of the eighteen steps, and why it still looks like an edge after a year on a wrist.

6 · Hardware, marks, and the last look

Steps 14–18 — punch the buckle holes, fit the spring bars, emboss the initials, final inspection, pack and ship.

Buckle holes are punched to the length you gave us, not to a standard pattern, which is why we ask for your wrist measurement rather than a size. Spring bars — quick release or regular — are fitted before the strap is boxed, so it goes onto your watch without tools.

If you asked for initials, they are stamped into the lining by hand, one letter at a time, with a heated tool. There is no undo on that step; it is done last, on a finished strap, by someone who has already spent a day on it.

Then the strap is checked against the order — lug width, length, stitch colour, buckle finish, engraving — and against itself: even stitch spacing, a clean edge along both sides, no glue haze, holes on centre. Straps that fail this go back to the bench. Straps that pass are wrapped and shipped with tracking.

How long it takes, and why

Five to seven days from order to dispatch. Almost none of that is waiting for materials — the leather is already on the shelf. It is glue curing, edges drying between coats, and the hour of stitching that cannot be shortened.

We do not hold finished stock in your size, because your size is the point. Every strap on this site is cut after you order it, to the lug width, length and thickness you chose, in the stitch colour you chose, with the buckle you chose. That is the trade: a week of waiting for a strap that fits one wrist.