I know I have been absent with review on straps as recently I had a lot of watches for reviews, but I approached Strapatelier and they sent in a few examples for a review. The Strapatelier is based in Singapore and was Founded in 2017 by Kai, a motorsport enthusiast & an avid watch collector. Kai also curates all the products that are sold on their website and they try to choose only the best straps to offer to watch collectors and enthusiasts. And I must say, Kai has done a great job as the selection of straps is quite large and the quality is really good. I also have to say that the prices are quite fair for the quality.
I chose 4 straps: orange nato, red military canvas strap, silicone diver strap in red and a leather rally strap in light brown colour. All the straps came neatly packaged in small envelopes signed with Stapatelier logo. Kai also threw in a spring bar tool and a couple of spring bars. The first impressions were quite good, the leather, silicone and canvas straps really surprised me with the quality, but the nato strap kind of was a bit of a dissapointment.
Let’s start with the nato strap. It is an orange nato strap, nothing serious. It has the regular hardware which is quite dissapointing. And also it was too short. I know that it costs only 12$ and that is cheap, but you can get a lot better nato straps for 15$ with premium hardware and seatbelt material. And it will be longer and fit more wrists. It should be atleast 4-5cm longer as I measured it with other of my nato straps from different brands and they all were longer.
The leather rally strap was a whole different story! It is really well made. The light brown leather is very smooth and supple right out of the box. The leather is almost like horween leather to touch with that buttery smooth texture. The strap also comes with a decent cnc’d buckle and quick release spring bars. The finishing on the strap is really good and all the edges are nicely finished.
The military style canvas strap is really good on my opinion and it is one of my favourite of the bunch. It is in dark red colour and is actually very soft and comfortable on the wrist, which was a surprise at just 27$ as I have bought some other canvas straps and they weren’t that comfotable, they were usually very stiff! I also like that the holes have a steel rings around them so they don’t fray. The tang style buckle is quite good and thick. The strap also have built in quick release spring bars.
Red silicone strap which has this diving strap styling like Seiko does is also pretty good. The silicone is super soft to touch and super comfy! Also as you can see the strap suits really good a watch with hidden lugs like my Maranez spy watch! The things I don’t like is that it doesn’t have quick release spring bars, I just think it is weird that all the other straps have them and this one doesn’t. Also I don’t like that it collects lint, but that is a problem for most silicone straps, even high end ones.
Overall all the straps are pretty good and priced very reasonable! The quality is quite good, it isn’t perfect, but it is far from average. The materials chosen are also quality. I like also the quick release spring bars which need to be in every two piece strap available in the market in my opinion. If you want to check out all their selection then go to www.strapatelier.com/products tehy actually update their straps from time to time.
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