The strap bug has bitten me with two custom straps from Monstraps
I purchased some custom straps from Monstraps a few weeks ago, and they arrived this weekend. And I must say I'm very happy with how they look on the watches.
For the Longines I went with a semi matt cognac alligator strap. The lighter colour, padding and more aggressive taper from 19mm to 16mm really add to the vintage vibes I think. As standard, it comes with a very dark brown one with almost no taper, so this is a welcome change.
For the Softwatch I went with a navy blue fine grain leather and colour matched stitching. This really works well with the warm tone of the gold.
Now, you might ask why a custom strap? Well, probably just because I could, but I also wanted to match the lining of the strap with the caseback medallion on the Longines.
As you can see, that didn't entirely work out as planned. The lining has more green tones in it, whereas the enamel has more of a purple tone. But nevertheless, I'm really happy with how these straps turned out. They look fantastic and high quality. The fine grain leather is nicely supple out of the box, the padded alligator needs some breaking in of course.
Some things that are worth noting, Monstraps uses thicker springbars than usual which is nice but if you want to use the buckle from your old strap you'll probably need the old springbar as well. The hole for the buckle tang was also a bit wider than the tangs of the buckles I have. But those are the only notable nitpicks so far.
What do you think, was it worth going the custom route to try to match the caseback? And if you have some tips and tricks to break in new straps, I'd love to hear them?
Love the Softwatch and the strap suits it well. I used to have one and the factory strap had gone pretty gross. Seeing one in new boots makes me regret selling it!
It’s to late for you at this point. Give into the addiction