The 7 Stages of Creating a Handmade Artisanal Strap
For us at Milano Straps, "handmade" is not just a production technique, it is a philosophy. In a world that in 2025 is racing towards total automation and artificial intelligence, choosing to keep an artisanal process means defending the soul of the product. Every strap born from the hands of a craftsman carries with it time, attention and a sensitivity that no machine can replicate. It is a gesture of respect towards tradition, but also towards the customer, who deserves something authentic, unique and unrepeatable.
Many ask me why we insist on a method that takes hours, sometimes days, to create what a machine could churn out in a few minutes. My answer is simple: a machine can reproduce perfect shapes, but it will never be able to convey that human warmth that comes from the work of hands. And this, in the end, is what makes an object special: its ability to tell a story and to create a bond with the person who wears it.
Today I want to invite you into our workshop. Not just to see, but to understand. I want to show you the journey a piece of leather takes to become a faithful companion on your wrist. A journey made up of seven stages, a ritual that unites material, skill and passion.
Stage 1: Selection – The Dialogue with the Raw Material
Everything begins with silence and respect. When a new hide arrives from the tanneries, the first gesture is never a cut, but an act of getting to know it. We run it through our fingers to test its consistency, we bring it to our nose to breathe in its clean, natural scent, we observe it against the light to discover its history. We look for a natural grain, a deep colour and uniform elasticity.
A machine would see only a surface to be processed. The eye of a craftsman, instead, reads a biography. Small veins or light scars are not defects to be discarded, but signatures of authenticity, proof that that leather has lived. Obviously, serious defects such as deep scratches, cracks or weak areas are unacceptable. Selection is an act of responsibility: it is the promise that only the noblest and most honest material deserves to begin this journey.
Stage 2: Cutting – The Intelligence of the Hand
Once the leather has been chosen, cutting takes place. Here you will not find mechanical presses stamping out shapes in series. You will find a craftsman bent over the workbench, armed with traditional tools such as the paring knife and blades as sharp as razors. Every movement is guided by the eye and the hand, never by a computer.
Hand cutting is infinitely superior to mechanical cutting for one fundamental reason: it respects the life of the leather. The experienced craftsman knows how to "read" the natural direction of the fibres and aligns the cut to follow it. This detail, invisible to the customer, is crucial: it ensures that the strap does not deform over time, maintaining a flexibility and strength that a die, cutting indiscriminately, could never guarantee. The secret lies entirely in the gesture: a sharp strike, decisive but incredibly precise, which leaves a clean, neat edge, with not the slightest fraying, already ready for the next stage. It is the intelligence of the hand that wins over the brute force of the machine.
Stage 3: The Invisible Architecture – Skiving and Assembly
A high-quality strap is a work of micro-architecture. It is made up of three layers that must work in perfect harmony: the outer leather, which gives beauty and character; an inner core, often in technical materials or leather, which provides structure and resistance to pulling; and the lining, the soft, hypoallergenic leather in contact with the wrist, which ensures comfort.
Before assembly, each layer is prepared with a process called skiving. Using hand-operated machines and extremely sharp knives, the craftsman thins the edges and sections of the leather with millimetric precision. The aim is a perfect balance: the strap must be thin enough to be flexible and comfortable, but thick enough to remain sturdy. Too thin and it would be weak; too thick and it would be as rigid as a board.
Once prepared, the layers are aligned and joined with water-based glues, non-toxic and resistant. This work is almost entirely invisible in the finished product, but it is the foundation on which all the solidity and longevity of the strap rests.
Stage 4: The Resilient Heart – Saddle Stitching by Hand
If assembly is the skeleton, stitching is the soul of the strap. At Milano Straps we use exclusively the saddle stitch, the same technique used for centuries by saddlers to create horse harnesses that had to withstand enormous strain. It is carried out entirely by hand, with a single waxed thread and two needles that pass through every hole, crossing over to create a self-locking stitch.
The superiority of this technique over machine stitching is absolute. In machine stitching, the two threads (upper and lower) simply lock together in the centre of the leather; if one stitch breaks, the entire seam risks unravelling quickly. In saddle stitching, every stitch is an independent knot. Even if, hypothetically, one stitch were to give way after years of wear, the two adjacent ones would hold it firm, preventing the seam from opening.
The thread we prefer is waxed linen, for its incredible strength and natural beauty. It has a unique ability to harmonise with the leather and to age alongside it, gaining character over time. This stitching is not merely an aesthetic detail: it is the backbone of the strap, a promise of durability stitched by hand, stitch after stitch.
Stage 5: The Magic of the Edges – A Ritual of Patience
Look at the edge of a luxury product, and you will understand the philosophy of whoever made it. In mass-produced goods, the edges are often left raw or covered with a simple coat of plastic paint. For us, the edge is a work of art in its own right.
The process, called edge dyeing, is a ritual of patience. After stitching, the edges are first sanded with increasingly fine abrasive papers until they are perfectly smooth. Then a first layer of dye is applied. It is left to dry. It is sanded again. A second layer is applied. It dries. It is sanded. This process is repeated several times, until the dye penetrates deeply, creating a smooth, uniform, slightly rounded edge, pleasant to the touch and resistant. Finally, the edge is burnished hot with wax, which seals it and protects it from moisture and wear. It is a job of almost invisible details, but it is there that the true hand of the craftsman shows itself.
Stage 6: Perfection in the Details – Holes and Keepers
Functionality must go hand in hand with beauty. The buckle holes are made one by one with precision punches. They must be perfectly equidistant, aligned and proportioned to the size of the strap. A detail even slightly out of place would compromise the entire aesthetic.
The keepers, the fixed one and the sliding one, are small elements that require great skill. They are cut, stitched and shaped by hand, often around a small inner core to give them the right shape and sturdiness. They must be strong but discreet, robust yet elegant, perfectly integrated into the design. The real challenge of craftsmanship lies exactly here: making microscopic details as beautiful as they are functional.
Stage 7: The Final Signature – Inspection, Anecdotes and Branding
No strap leaves the workshop without passing one final, rigorous examination. Every piece is inspected meticulously: the surface of the leather, the uniformity of the stitching, the smoothness of the edges, the sturdiness of the keepers. It is in this stage that the true nature of our work is revealed.
An anecdote I always like to tell concerns Marco, one of our craftsmen who has worked with us for over twenty years. One day, during quality control, he picked up a strap that looked flawless to the naked eye. He ran it through his fingers and stopped. He shook his head and said: "This is not a Milano Straps edge." He was right: it was missing one very last pass of wax polishing, a difference imperceptible to the eye, but not to the expert touch of someone who has spent a lifetime pursuing excellence. That moment taught me that true quality lies exactly in this obsession with invisible details. Our craftsmen are not mere "leather workers", but custodians of a tradition, knowledge inherited across generations.
Only after passing this examination does the final moment arrive: the application of the Milano Straps branding iron. It is an almost sacred gesture, which sums up the entire journey: from the scent of the raw leather to the finished, polished and perfect product. Personally, every time I press our logo, I feel a deep sense of pride. It is not just a mark, it is a signature. It is my promise, and that of my craftsmen, bearing witness to quality, passion and Italian authenticity.
Conclusion: A Message on the Wrist
At the end of this whole process, when a customer fastens a Milano Straps strap on their wrist for the first time, I hope they sense something more than a simple accessory. I would like them to feel the warmth of handmade work, to perceive the solidity of a story stitched together stitch by stitch, to have the certainty of wearing something that will last over time and that is unlike any other strap in the world.
Because, in the end, our philosophy can be summed up in a single sentence:
👉 "A Milano Straps strap is not just a strap: it is a fragment of Italian tradition, made to last and to tell who you are."
The lexicon of the trade
Every stage has a precise name. Some technical terms for those who truly want to understand the process:
Skiving: progressive thinning of the leather on the edges and the lining to reduce thickness without losing strength. A manual operation carried out with the paring knife.
Saddle stitch: the two-needle technique in which the thread passes through the same hole from opposite directions. Slower than a sewing machine, but if one stitch breaks, the whole seam does not unravel.
Edge burnishing: hand finishing of the edges with wax and a burnishing tool. It seals the fibres, creating a glossy, water-resistant edge. It requires several passes at increasing temperatures.
Horween: the Chicago tannery that produces the shell cordovan recognised as the world benchmark. When we write "cordovan", we always mean a material that comes from a tannery of this calibre — not generic leather called cordovan for marketing purposes.
All this work ends here: Milano Straps' handmade leather watch straps.