«Watch strap ressource» Where to buy good quality leather watch straps

I have seen work by the Strap Tailor who has a website. Some very nice straps there. Personally I have a bit of a budget when it comes to straps so I tend to stick to ready made. Rios makes some nice ones and Di Modell makes some nice thin ones for dress watches.

+1 from a happy customer. Expensive but excellent bespoke solution to tricky vintage sizes, if it's a really worthwhile piece.

Happy with this Horween strap from Japanese company Accurate Form.

Will a link do?
Bought 5 straps here, never disappointed.

Bob

Custom purple croc from TJC Leather (tjcleather.com). Folded edge, 2mm thick, 0.35 FaC thread. Cost a whole $100 usd. Great value.

Crab/fountain pen holder from Ahnitol. Completely hand painted.

triple dibs!

Thanks for this referral, chatting to her now about some Omega deployant style straps in various leathers. Checking options since the OEM straps are now £380+ which means there's a lot of room to consider alternatives (i.e. bespoke it get it just right).

Trinh's work. Punches above its weight, but you have to confirm all the details with her. Preferably with pics. She's not the only VN maker that does this, but she'll agree to your requests but may actually misunderstand what you really want.

Good tip. So far Trinh has been very engaging and asks for photos for clarity. I will sum it all up with photos and embedded measurements so hopefully it will work out.

So, I had a chance to buy some straps (with some other strap fiends) from TL.watchstrapvn (IG/whatsapp handle) or Tuan. It was quite a large strap order, causing Tuan to miss his ETA, but what strapmaker actually keeps to it? My share, though, only consisted of 3 straps, as I wanted to try him out before committing to more straps.

What did I order?

From left to right:

(1) Dark yellow Degermann dauphin, violet chevre (goat) backing
(2) Lavender alran sully (chevre/goat), aubergine epsom backing
(3) Light blue Degermann dauphin, violet chevre (goat) backing





Question #1 - What is Degermann dauphin?

Dauphin is Degermann's (another leather house) take on epsom, which usually from Tannery du Puy. I love the texture of epsom but find it too "bright". It might look great for handbags (where you can find a lot of it) but for watch straps, I found that it was a little too loud. The Degermann variant adds in some "patina" and tones down the brightness. I found it works great for watch straps. I was first alerted to it by a watch buddy and this is the first time I've actually custom ordered one.

Here's a comparison with epsom in the middle. You can clearly see the "patina" in the light blue Degermann but not so much in the dark yellow.



Another reason for getting Degermann is that it resembles (somewhat) another material that I love - Russian hatch. Russian hatch also has that "patina" that I love. However, the colour availability for Russian hatch can be counted with the fingers on one hand. I needed a bit more variety and the Degermann is very close in texture. In this photo, with the Russian hatch in the middle, you can see the "patina" of the yellow Degermann better.



Question #2 - How does it compare to Trinh (7 straps) ?

Honestly, I found Trinh's work to be good. Sure, there were some folks who may had issues regarding her following instructions or follow-up but her workmanship is good. To be honest, with any non-native English speaking strapmaker, I make sure to provide plenty of pictures and ask (proactively) if there's anything he/she doesn't understand. Sometimes, they're just too afraid to lose the sale to ask Qs. And, most importantly, carefully scrutinizing the pictures the strapmaker sends to you PRIOR to sending them off. Even with Tuan, we asked for a re-work on a strap because it wasn't up to par.

To refresh memories, here are a couple of pics of Trinh's work.

Chevre


Swift


Ostrich belly


Question #3 - Would you order from Tuan again ?

To be very critical, was Tuan's work perfect? Nope. But these weren't $300 straps, where I expect perfection. They were about 1/8 to 1/10 of that price. Tuan also made some fairly complex straps for my watch fiends, which turned out well. What wasn't perfect? Really, it was just the edge paint. Either there was the tiniest bit (and I mean you really really have to look) of paint that went over the edge, or there was a tiny portion of the edge where the paint didn't cover. It's in one of the pics above and it's the ONLY part of all my straps that wasn't covered by paint.

So, yes, I'd definitely order from Tuan again.

Hope you enjoyed this little comparison of my latest strap acquisition.

Here you go!

This guy do custom, and custom engraving as well

I bought 2 straps from him, and really satisfied with the products.