What I Look For When Sourcing a New Leather

Next year it will be twenty years since I first started making watch straps. The most important lesson I’ve learned in that time is that a strap is only ever as good as the leather it’s cut from. I spend my working week cutting, stitching and finishing straps, but if the hides I'm using aren’t right, none of it matters.

A couple of times every year, I hunt for new leathers to add to my store. The selection process is exhaustive: I visit tanneries and wholesalers, have samples sent to me, and draw up shortlists of possibilities. But before any leather is launched on my site, I make one strap from it and wear it to see if it works for me. Only if it does will the leather go on sale.

Every leather I add to my store has to earn its place. Earlier this year I added four new leathers - Merlot Kudu, Cerberus, Amalthea and Sapphire, chosen from a shortlist of nine that I trialled. The truth is, I turn down far more leathers than I accept.

I’ve recently started the search again, with new leathers hopefully launching early next year, so it seemed a good time to explain what I look for when choosing one.

 

1. Why I prefer vegetable tanned leather

The first question I always ask is how the leather was tanned. For the straps I make, the answer usually has to be vegetable tanning.

Veg tanning uses natural tannins from plant sources such as tree bark. It’s a slow process that takes weeks or even months rather than days, but produces the best quality leather in my opinion. However, the leather industry is dominated by chrome tanned leather. It uses chromium salts instead of natural tannins, and as a result is much quicker and cheaper. It may be suitable for mass produced leather goods, but vegetable tanning is normally preferable to me for my watch straps. 

I've written about this in more detail in an earlier post, but in short, for luxury leather goods I think veg tan wins on the things that really matter:

• It ages beautifully. Veg tanned leather develops a patina. It deepens, warms and gains a richness from handling, light and wear. Many chrome tanned straps look much the same until the day they start to look tired, whereas veg tanned straps get more beautiful as they age.
• It has real character. The surface of a veg tanned leather is more natural, with a feel and smell that are unmistakably leather.
• It holds its shape. Veg tanned leather has a firmness and body that suits a watch strap, which has to survive daily life on the wrist.

Chrome tanned leather does have its place, and I have occasionally used it when it's been good enough, but the vast majority of my straps are made from vegetable tanned leather. 

 

2. Full grain or top grain

Another very important aspect of choosing a leather is to understand which part of the hide it is made from. The outermost layer of a hide, the grain, is the strongest and most characterful part. Full grain leather keeps that surface intact, natural marks and all. Top grain leather has had the very surface lightly sanded or buffed to even it out, but it still comes from that strong outer layer, unlike the lower splits that are sometimes sold as “genuine leather”.

The vast majority of the leathers I use are full grain, but I do use some top grain leather too. I exclusively choose these grades for two reasons.

Strength. The tightly packed fibres of the grain layer are what give a strap its durability. A strap worn every day is flexed, rubbed and exposed to sweat, and it needs to take that for years.

Looks and ageing. This is the part I love most. Good grain leather shows the natural character of the hide, and it ages in a way that corrected or heavily coated leather never does. Over time it softens, polishes at the edges and takes on a depth that makes each strap look like its owner’s.

 

3. Thickness and pliability

A watch strap has a tricky brief. It has to be firm enough to support the watch, hold its shape and resist stretching, yet soft enough to be comfortable from the first day.

Because of how my straps are made, the thickness of the strap is approximately 2x the thickness of the leather I use. I look for leather between 1.5mm and 2.5mm thick (producing straps between 3mm-5mm thick). Much thinner and they can lack structure and start to stretch or sag over time. Much thicker and they can be stiff, bulky and awkward on the wrist.

Of course the thickness alone doesn’t tell the whole story, so I handle every sample. I bend it, flex it and feel how it recovers. I’m looking for leather with backbone that still moves with you. It’s something I can only judge by hand, which is why I never source from a photo, and why the visits I make to tanneries and leather wholesalers are so vital.

 

4. Something a bit special

Finally, there’s the part that’s most personal. I want to offer my customers a good range of colours, because everyone’s taste and everyone’s watch is different. But a colour on its own isn’t enough for me.

A leather has to be interesting to look at. I’m looking for something unique - maybe depth, a bit of variation, or a surface that appears to change in the light. It might be a rich, slightly mottled brown like Heidrun, or a saturated blue such as Cobalt Blue. It might be a texture that catches the eye or one that is subtle and understated.

Sometimes it’s not only how a leather looks, but how it’s made. Vintage Black is a good example of this. It’s a traditionally pit tanned leather from the last oak bark tannery in the UK, and the vegetable tanning process takes fourteen months (yes, really). Locally sourced ox calf hides pass through three different tanning pits, each containing a liquor made from a different tree bark, before being dyed, printed with the traditional Russian hatch pattern and dressed.

Russian calf leather has an almost mythical reputation for quality, and the tannery spent six years experimenting with different recipes until they could match the smell and handling of the original. In my opinion, they’ve done it. A leather with that much care and patience behind it is one I’ll always find interesting.

But a good story isn't enough on its own. If a leather looks flat or lifeless, I won’t be drawn to it, however well it ticks the other boxes. A strap is something you’ll see every time you glance at your wrist. It should give you a small moment of pleasure every time.

 

Why it matters

As I approach twenty years of making watch straps, I’m happy to say I’ve built a good reputation on quality, and I’m fortunate that it keeps me busy. That means I can afford to be choosy. When I add a leather to my store, I’m not trying to win orders or fill a catalogue - I’m only interested in whether it’s worth the time I’ll spend making a strap from it.

Each strap I make takes around 90 minutes of my time, from cutting and skiving through to stitching and finishing. That’s a lot of care given to a single piece. If I'm going to spend that amount of time on a strap, I want the result to be as good as it can possibly be. That has to start with the leather. I've learned that no amount of skill at the bench can make up for a hide that isn’t right, and honestly I’d rather not spend an hour and a half on a strap I'm not completely happy with.

I know I am judged on every strap I send to my customers, so I choose to be selective and make my straps from leather I truly believe in. I could offer more choice by compromising, but I won't do that. Every leather in my collection is there on merit, and every strap I send out I would be happy to wear myself.

If you’re choosing a strap, I hope this gives you a sense of what’s behind the leather you’re holding. I'm proud of each and every leather in my store. If you’d like help finding the right one for your watch, get in touch - I’m always happy to talk it through.