This unique material blends together the properties of leather and rubber into one, bringing the touch and feel of leather with the waterproofness and scratch-resistant nature of rubber. With our Rubberised Leather series, we can now bring our signature handcrafting to a new collection of straps that is ready to take on the elements!
We're really excited about this one. We've been looking to add a 100% waterproof material (not just water resistant) to the strap collection for a long while now. The trick was finding a material that could be manipulated and crafted, just like how we make all of our leather strap. Some material ended up being too stiff or heavy, while others don't work too nicely with cutting and thinning. After searching around for a bit, we finally found a supplier for this material that we're calling rubberised leather. This is a synthetic material with a leather-like surface, that has been treated to have the same properties as rubber. The material itself is waterproof and also highly scratch resistant. In order to have a strap made entirely of synthetic material, the lining is also made with the same material as the top.
The key difference between this strap and other rubber strap on the market is in the construction. Most rubber straps are made via injection-molding process (including our Tissot PRX rubber straps). These Rubberised Leather straps are made with our traditional leathercrafting technique, just like any of our leather straps. Without the use of molds, it also means that these straps can be custom made in any style, length etc. Personally, I think that stitching and the traditional crafted look of the strap makes it more suitable for dress watches compared to rubber straps made via injection molding which tend to be more suited to sports watches.
We are releasing two textures - one is entirely smooth and looks like rubber, while the other has a grained "Togo" texture, for a texture that looks more like leather.
