Handmade is not a protected term. Nobody checks who writes it, and on a watch strap it can mean everything or almost nothing. But hand work leaves physical traces, and those show up even in a photograph once you know where to look. There are three: the stitching, the edge, and the way the strap thins down.
The stitching, which is the clearest sign
A sewing machine uses two threads, one above and one below, knotting them in the middle of the thickness. The result is a stitch line identical on both faces, perfectly aligned, with the stitches perpendicular to the edge. If one stitch breaks, the thread unravels along the whole length.
A saddle stitch uses one thread and two needles crossing inside the same hole. That produces two visible differences. First: the stitches sit at a slight angle, and on the two faces the angle leans in opposite directions — you can see it by holding the strap up to the light. Second: if a stitch gives way, the thread stays locked by the crossings either side and the strap does not open.
If in a photograph the stitches are perfectly perpendicular and identical top and bottom, it is machine sewn. That is not a fault, it is a fact.
Look at the spacing too. A machine holds intervals to a tenth of a millimetre. By hand the spacing is even but not identical, because the holes come from a pricking iron and the hand doing the work has its own measure. Absolute regularity, on a piece described as artisanal, is a contradiction.
The edge
A strap edge can be closed in two ways. With paint, applied in several coats, covering the layers and leaving a smooth, slightly glossy surface. Or by burnishing — wetting the fibre and working it with a warm iron until it compacts and darkens on its own.
A painted edge is uniform and has a thickness of its own: seen end-on, you can make out a film. A burnished edge shows the fibre of the leather, carries a colour that fades towards dark, and adds no thickness.
They behave differently over time, and that is what matters. Paint eventually cracks and chips, and from that point the edge opens. A burnished edge wears down slowly and never chips. There is no contest over the long run, but burnishing costs time: twenty minutes of work on a single strap, which is why most production uses paint.
Skiving
This is the part nobody looks at, and the one that separates serious work from the rest. Where the strap folds around the spring bar, the leather has to be thinned down — skived — otherwise the fold builds up thickness, pushes the watch outward and gives way within months.
You can see it by holding the strap side-on at the case attachment. If the thickness is the same as the rest and the fold bulges, no skiving happened. If the thickness tapers and the fold lies flat, it did.
The same applies at the buckle end, where the leather folds back on itself: there two thicknesses have to become one.
Where machines belong, and belong properly
There is nothing noble about refusing machines on principle. Splitting leather to a constant thickness is done by machine and done better than by hand. Clicker-die cutting on repeated runs is more accurate and wastes less hide. Even certain long straight seams, on sports straps, come out more regular by machine.
The real difference is where the hand goes: choosing the hide, cutting the pattern, skiving, finishing. A strap machine stitched but hand cut, hand skived and hand finished is a good strap. One hand stitched onto a part-finished blank bought ready-made is not.
Made in Italy: what it says and what it does not
It says where the last substantial transformation happened. It does not say where the leather was tanned, nor where the piece was cut. A strap assembled in Italy from parts worked elsewhere is legitimately Made in Italy.
I am not saying this to undercut the label — the Italian tradition in this trade is real, and Tuscan vegetable tanning is still an international reference. I am saying it because the label alone does not answer the question you are asking. The three things above do.
How we work
Saddle stitch, edges burnished with heat, skiving on every piece. Splitting to thickness we do by machine, because by hand it would come out worse. Bespoke is done at the atelier in Milan, Via XX Settembre 15, by appointment only.
We are not the only ones working this way in Italy. There are few, and they can be recognised by the criteria above — which apply against us too: if you ever find a painted edge or a bulging fold on one of our straps, you have every right to say so.
What I do not know
I cannot judge a strap from a description. Catalogue photographs are almost always too small to show the angle of the stitches, and product pages use the same words for different work. When someone asks my opinion on a piece I have not held, I say I cannot give one.
The short version
Three things, in order of how easily you can read them: stitches that lean and differ between the two faces mean hand stitching; an edge showing the fibre and fading to dark means burnishing; a thickness that tapers at the case attachment means skiving. If all three are there, the rest of the description matters little. If none of them are, it matters even less.