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www.watchpro.com
6 April 2015, online watch magazine
Sabel shows watch strap craft skills to Londoners
by Rob Corder
photo by Colin Coutts
Luxury leather designer and saddler Mia Sabel is setting up shop at Fortnum & Mason’s event during London Craft Week in May to present her company’s bespoke leather watch strap design, make and fit service.
Her company, Sabel, specialises in creating top end leather saddles, but has developed a range of other leather goods including pet collars, belts and watch straps.
London Craft Week, which runs from May 7-10, is made up of several events and demonstrations at major stores and galleries including Fortnum & Mason, Fenwick, and Selfridges.
Vacheron Constantin is a founding partner for the week; lending its considerable reputation to the pursuit of luxury craftsmanship in the UK.
Sabel is a beneficiary of a mentoring service from Walpole, which introduces talented craftspeople to appropriate mentors, in the case of Mia Sabel, to Robert Ettinger, CEO of Ettinger, a historic luxury leather goods maker.
During the event at Fortnum & Masons, Sabel will demonstrate its bespoke watch strap making service.
Working directly with luxury watch owners, Sabel straps are hand-cut, hand-stitched and hand-burnished in Britain using materials and techniques inspired by and derived from traditional English Saddlery.
Straps are individually designed and made for a specific timepiece before being fitted to the customer.
“We believe we are in the unique position of offering this bespoke, made-to-measure and fitting service to the UK watch market. By using our full service, it is ensured that the strap is designed to fit the wrist perfectly, ideally fastened with the need for only a single hole. The benefit is a shorter, more elegant strap as unused holes only weaken the leather, lengthen the strap unnecessarily and, by definition, are superfluous,” says Sabel.
“This bespoke service has already allowed Sabel to create solutions for many clients and has been popular with people who own unusual or vintage pieces, require straps of non-standard widths, whose replacement straps have become obsolete, whose wrists are particularly large or small, and those who require the strap to be stitched directly onto the watch,” Sabel continues.
Rob Corder
