Review: AnOrdain's Bespoke Strap Service

If there’s any word that exemplifies the essence of luxury, it is “bespoke.” With the right connections, means, and sometimes notoriety, you can get a bespoke suit from Savile Row, a pair of shoes from John Lobb, a Range Rover from Overfinch, or, of course, a watch from the Vallée de Joux or Glashütte. Is there anything more exclusive than a “one of one” product made to your exacting specifications and taste? You’ll never see another like it “in the wild,” which can be both a private pleasure or performative Veblen signaling. In case you aren’t clear on what is meant by “bespoke,” here’s some background from Merriam-Webster:

“In the English language of yore, the verb bespeak had various meanings, including ‘to speak,’ ‘to accuse,’ and ‘to complain.’ In the 16th century, bespeak acquired another meaning: ‘to order.’ It is from that sense that we get the adjective bespoke, referring to clothes and other things that are ordered before they are made. Bespoke has enjoyed a spike in usage in recent years, perhaps due to consumer trends that champion all things artisanal over those that are prefab.”

For watch enthusiasts of, shall we say, “ordinary” means, the notion of ordering a truly bespoke watch is a far-fetched pipe dream, the province of high rollers named Mayer, Jay-Z, or Clymer. But there is a bespoke experience that is more accessible to mere mortals, one that can affect a watch’s appearance, appeal, and, in some cases, wearability: a new strap. Bespoke straps are nothing new. I remember in my early days of watch collecting seeing the options available in leather and canvas, many of them for the Paneristi community. Over the years, I’ve ordered my share of straps in various sizes and materials from GasGasBones, the Strap Tailor, Roverhaven, and others. I even had one made from the canvas roof of a decommissioned military Land Rover. This was a way to replace an OEM (“original equipment manufacturer”) strap to refresh its look or make it more personal, differentiating it from everyone else who owned the same watch.

Some watch brands do offer bespoke straps as part of the package when you buy a watch, most often to fit an equally bespoke watch, but there aren’t a lot of truly tailored options. Now the Glasgow, Scotland-based anOrdain, best known for its artisanal enamel and porcelain dials, has launched a bespoke strap service, with the same enthusiasm and eye for detail it applies to its watches. These straps are not limited for use with anOrdain’s watches, and are not subject to the same long waitlists associated with ordering one of their watches.

The bespoke strap service is similar to the approach anOrdain takes with its watches, with a focus on aesthetic craft rather than movement manufacture. Its dials have been the company’s calling card since its founding, and the service is a further extension of this focus on craftsmanship. I was curious enough about the straps to pony up a not insignificant sum to order one for myself. The program was in its trial—or shall we say, probationary—phase, so it took a fair bit of time, and a back-and-forth with the in-house strap maker to iron out the details. This was early last year, before a delay in anOrdain’s rollout put the project on ice for several months, which gave me the opportunity not only to experience the ordering process but also to wear-test the strap on my own anOrdain Model 1 over a few seasons.

The first step in the process is to select the leather candidates from a questionnaire on anOrdain’s website. Of 22 distinctive hides, from French goatskin or Horween cordovan, to bison, or cowhides, all with different colors and textures, the customer narrows the options to eight picks. Small swatches of these are packaged in a sample box that also has examples of stitching options and edging types from which to choose. Also included is a tailor’s tape for measuring wrist circumference. The sample kit is simple but elegant, befitting the experience and the price, which, by the way, is £380 (~$520 at the time of writing). The leather samples are small but big enough to get a good idea of feel and color. They arrive riveted together so you can fan them out, and each is embossed with its name.

Once I chose the leather and stitch color, and type of edging I preferred, I measured my wrist for a truly custom fit. Nothing says “bespoke” like a strap that doesn’t have an excess tail and is punched with only three holes, in exactly the right places, to account for climate or activity-based wrist swelling or shrinkage. The finishing touches were the cut for the tail of the strap—straight, rounded, or angled—and a custom embossing for the inside of the leather. I entered all these details in a form on anOrdain’s site, and then waited for my strap to be made.

At present, anOrdain has a single person, named Abbie, making the bespoke straps. I communicated with Abbie while she was making mine. She sent me photos of the process, and had questions about my wrist measurement and about the angle I chose for the tail end, and a process note about her sealing of the stitching:

“I would ordinarily use an open flame to melt and secure the thread on the reverse side, opting for a lighter to do this. Due to the gentle qualities of the Carlo Nofin [ed. note: the leather I chose], I cannot get as close to the leather as I would like for risk of damage, resulting in it lacking the accuracy I would like. I am currently working on this feature and have a tool arriving next week to hopefully help with securing the thread for it to look as polished and neat as possible.”

She also gently corrected my spelling of the word I chose for the embossing:

“Sláinte with the accent acute, as requested, is the Irish version of the word. Slàinte with the accent obtuse, as shown, is the Scottish Gaelic version. Can I ask which you would prefer used?”

About a month later, my finished strap arrived in a box with some care instructions, a cloth, and some leather treatment balm. The Carlo Nofin leather, from the Badalassi tannery in Italy, is, to use a cliché, buttery soft. I chose a lighter, slightly orange color with a contrasting blue stitch that almost matches the blued steel hands on the Model 1. The leather is split to the desired thickness, then glued and stitched to accommodate spring bars, and the edges sealed. The strap came fitted with one of anOrdain’s standard steel pin buckles, which is slim, with a distinctive bump at the top where the company’s logo is engraved.

In the year after wearing the watch, the leather has darkened a fair bit to a rich, warm brown while holding up well (note to self: use the treatment balm). While the Model 1 watch on which the strap is mounted is by far the dressiest piece in my collection, it has been worn through a fair bit of what a typical watch enthusiast might consider abuse. And here I’ll be honest: my girlfriend wore it more than I over the past year, on hikes in Scotland, hanging sheetrock in a home renovation project, even sweating it out at the gym. This is not the advised use for a dress watch or a leather strap, but consider it all part of field testing and following an ethos that watches (and straps) should serve us, and not the other way around. Keep in mind that leather straps were long the only choice of soldiers, pilots, and even divers before the era of rubber and nylon straps. Good quality leather, well cared for, should last a very long time.

And I do hope this strap lasts a long time, because it was expensive. $500 for a leather strap is nothing to sneeze at, and no doubt will provoke some metaphoric eye rolling in the comment section. It is, in fact, a third of the price of a Model 1 watch. That said, it’s not an unreasonable amount of money for a handcrafted, premium product that takes an artisan with very specialized skills and equipment three days to make. 

anOrdain’s Bespoke Strap Service officially launched earlier this month. Straps can take up to six weeks to be completed, give or take, depending on demand. More information can be found on anOrdain’s website.