If there is one question I get asked more than any other it is “what is your favourite leather?”. This is really not an easy question for me to answer because I like all of the leathers I have available in the store (I wouldn’t use them if that wasn’t the case), but I thought it might be useful to write this blog post to identify five leathers from the eighty or so currently available that I recommend without hesitation. I’ve had to make some hard decisions to get down to just five, and as a result there are lots of great leathers that haven’t made the list, but below are five of my personal favourites – and five leathers that I recommend to my customers most often. So here they are. My favourite five (in no particular order).
Horween Nut Brown
Horween Nut Brown is a leather I’ve been using since April this year and I absolutely love it. I’ve made several straps for my watches from it already (including one I made for my Panerai 87 when it first arrived) and it just gets better and better with wear. It’s quite a thick leather so it makes a substantial strap, but don’t be put off by that – it is very soft from the start and I often get comments about how comfortable it is from new. What I love about this leather most is the texture of the leather – it’s a top grain leather and has bags of character. The photograph above shows very well the leathers texture – the strap was stitched with “dark brown” thread.
Espresso
Another brown leather I have included is Espresso. This is also a relatively new addition to the store, and one that I haven’t (yet) said too much about either on my blog or on my social media (but watch this space!). Like Horween Nut Brown it is a full grain vegetable tanned leather, but it has a much tighter grain than Nut Brown, and it has a decidedly flat matt appearance. I have been wearing the strap in the photo above on my Panerai zero for some time now and it is a great contrast with the polished case of the watch. Espresso has become a firm favourite of mine, and I’m planning to make a strap for one of my Anonimo Polluce from it just as soon as I get some time.
Nero
Of course I had to include a black leather in this list of five, and it wasn’t an easy choice, but in the end I’ve gone for Nero. Nero is a fully veg tanned steerhide produced by the Horween tannery in Chicago, and it is gorgeous. If you’re looking for a thick but comfortable black leather for a watch strap I don’t believe there is any better choice. Every month it is consistantly one of the best selling leathers, and the feedback I get is always good. The strap above was stitched with “butterscotch” thread, but being black any colour stitching will work with it.
Typhoon
My fourth choice is not black or brown, but one I’ve probably recommended more than any other over the last eighteen months or so – Typhoon. This is a very dark blue leather produced by an Italian tannery in a full veg tanned process, and it has a lovely pull up. When I launched it last year I recommended either grey or a blue stitch with it (and when it came to making a strap for my 233 “pale blue” was my choice), and they are still my preference, but over the last twelve months or so it’s been paired with natural and butterscotch stitching a lot too to great effect.
Cyclone
Finally, last but certainly not least is Cyclone. This almost didn’t make the favourite five list because I don’t have much of it and so it may not be available for very long, but it is such a special leather that I really felt I couldn’t leave it out. It’s only been available for a couple of months but has already proved very popular, and last month I posted a testimonial I received about it in my blog. From the feedback I’ve had so far, Cyclone is not just one of my favourite leathers, it’s also hit the spot with many of my customers.
So there you have it – my favourite five leathers. You can’t go wrong with any of them.