After reading this forum for a few weeks I can only conclude that I'm strange and different: I seriously dislike metal bracelets. So much so that I wouldn't even wear a watch with one.

Most (all?) people around here seem to be into metal bracelets on their luxury watches, but to me it makes all watches look bland and samey ... just a mass of blingy steel with a slightly thicker metal blob in the middle - which should be the proud focal point if only my eyes weren't so distracted by all the steel around it

The worst aspect of metal bracelets to me is that it hides the characteristic shapes of the lugs, which are often the most beautifully sculpted parts of a watch and one of the key aspects that gives a watch its own personality.

Go ahead.. tell me I'm crazy

 

Can’t do so. You have an idiosyncratic watch thing going on. Just like 99% of the people here

 

I prefer a leather strap. Both lighter in weight and more comfortable generally.

 

don’t worry, this is how I ended after confessing my dislike towards NATO straps...

.

 

You are not crazy

but

what you like is mostly what you are used to seeing.


Look at this, are those not absolutely Carrera lugs? (despite the ill-fitting bracelet -- I had to file it down to fit, but that was 45 years ago, so sue me)




This doesn't have particularly interesting lugs but that beaten-up contemporary bracelet makes it look like a serious tool watch and I wear it a lot more than I expected to when I bought it.




And back in the Omega camp, the bracelet doesn't take anything away from the twisted lugs IMO.

 

I just ordered two NATO straps. I’ll see what I think. I do like a metal bracelet if it’s well-executed and fits well. A clasp with a glide-lock helps a lot. I also like a good leather strap or rubber strap. I have two watches on canvas straps.
You’re not strange. Well, no stranger than the rest of us. You know what you like, nothing strange about that.

 

I'm in that asylum right alongside you. There's an amount of money I'm willing to accept in order to wear a NATO for a week, but it's probably larger than you think.

 

I thought seeing you the other day outside in the asylum garden, seems the shape of the straps on our jackets resemble that of NATOs, must be part of our ongoing medical treatment.

 

looks like we agree on this and probably a heck of a lot of other things too.

 

I own about 30 NATO’s (some fairly high end) and hate every one of them. I keep trying, but they just don’t work. That said, a canvas strap or single Pass on a vintage mil watch is superb, comfortable and highly appropriate.
But I am a bracelet guy, I always have been. Even watches for which no factory bracelet was available- I will go to the ends of the earth to find a bracelets that works.

And I’ve never met a Rolex that didn’t look better on a factory bracelet than on strap- there, I said it!

 

Couldn't have said it better meeself

 

Lugs still visible

 

Looks like @Archer is also not a fan of the nato strap

 

I wear them all the time...

 

oh boy now you done it

 

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned heat. I wear leather straps most of the time, but in hot summer weather, nothing can match the relative comfort of a good steel bracelet.

 

I find bracelets less comfortable no matter what the weather is...

 

My British sarcasm does not come across in text

 

I can either go for bracelet or strap, just depends on the watch. At this time I only have four bracelet watches, a '57 Trilogy Speedmaster, the Apollo 11 50th, a Daytona and a Roger Dubuis sport watch, all the rest are on straps of one sort or the other. But I just cannot wear a NATO strap, just makes the whole watch looks bulky, untidy and unfinished, to me a NATO strap is the classic 'answer to a question no one asked'. No matter if they are comfortable, if the look is bad I won't wear it. But plenty of people like them for various reasons, one of them being most of them are cheap and allows you to change the look without breaking the bank.