Great experience at the Delugs showroom - Ming 22.01

TLDR : great experience and would 100% recommend if you're ever in Singapore

Hi everyone,

So a week ago I received my Ming 22.01 gilt, and although the original barenia leather strap feels and looks great, I wanted to try some other straps, especially since I'm not (yet?) used to the Singaporean weather and I did not want to damage the original strap

Since I knew Delugs made some great curved straps and had a showroom in Singapore, I felt like this was a great opportunity to finally see their straps. Suffice to say I was not disappointed in the least

Before going there I spent a considerable amount of time on their website planning specifically which straps I was interested in, trying some combos on their strap finder (this is an incredible feature by the way), and of course I read their strap guide on the Ming 22.01 gilt

I ended up buying none of the specific models I was interested in beforehand. The showroom contains pretty much every strap they make, and so you get to try every combo to get exactly the look you want (needless to say, the straps look really high quality). Having only purchased my straps online before, I've had several times the disappointing experience of purchasing a strap only to find upon receiving it that it does not match the watch as well as you thought it would. I ended up testing a ton of combinations and found the straps that suited the Ming best, which were none of those among my preselection based on their website

The vendor was fantastic. Super helpful and nice, knew his stuff like the back of his hand. Added bonus, he was wearing a gorgeous Cartier Santos on one of their CTS rubber straps. Last Saturday I went to a watch shop the salesman where the salesman seemed to know litterally nothing about straps, so being advised by a fellow enthusiast was super nice

In the end, I purchased a green curved CTS rubber strap, a black and khaki elastic loop strap (the guy let me try several sizes to make sure I would get the right fit). He also helped me order a bespoke cognac shell cordovan strap as the color looked amazing with my Ming but they didn't have it with curved spring bars. This allowed me to get the right specifications in order to put my Ming tuck in buckle on it, I'm expecting the combo to be undethronable

Their CTS rubber straps are quite costly when you compare them to some other offerings, but Delugs is one of the only manufacturers making them with curved springbars (the only other one I know is Jean Rousseau but theirs are twice as expensive), and they are made specifically with Ming watches in mind I believe. The straps are of great quality, and the clasp is great too, mechanism feels and looks sturdy, it's well finished and it looks great on wrist. The cut to size part was a bit frightening but the vendor did it for me (again, very helpful!), and not having a ludicrously long tail sticking out is great as in the past I've had the hardest of times finding rubber straps which aren't too long

All in all, it was a ton of fun, I am more than pleased with my purchases and I can't wait to get my shell cordovan strap. The only thing I'm afraid of is buying more straps when I go back there to collect it