Alex Brown, co-founder of rising brand Elliot Brown, has explained in some detail the lengths that he and his company have gone to to perfect their first foray into rubber straps.
The Poole-based watch brand, which was founded in 2013, prides itself on being both beautifully designed and incredibly robust and well-made, but hasn’t before produced a timepiece with a rubber strap.
“We spent most of last summer designing, refining, and redesigning our first rubber strap,” Brown explains. “A lot of brands look through a silicone strap catalogue, pick something, and just ask the vendor to mould their logo into it, laser-etch the buckle, and call it theirs.” But this method doesn’t sit comfortably with the south coast outfit.
“That wouldn’t be an Elliot Brown strap,” insists Brown. “It would just be a strap with an Elliot Brown logo on it. We wanted to design one that was our own.”
So Brown and his partner and co-founder, Ian Elliot, spent a long time looking at all the different material options that were available, and ended up going with a rubber called EDPM.
“EPDM feels very natural to wear and isn’t sticky, unlike silicone. EPDM is also hypo-allergenic and resistant to seawater, ozone, and UV; important considerations for our customers.”
Ever-attentive to the finer details of a watch, Elliot Brown exhausted over several other elements that go into making a new strap work, including: the length and width of the strap, moulding the strap ends, moulding on the inner strap, and work on the buckle and the keepers.
“It took a lot of time to get right, but we think it was worth it. We wore the prototypes all-day every day for six months, and this is our new favourite strap,” Brown proudly concludes.
The straps will be available in black, gunmetal grey, white, dark blue, olive drab, and vintage orange, with beadblasted gunmetal grey, beadblasted matt black, or brushed 316L buckles to match the brand’s watches.
I waited 6 months for a Special Edition Elliot Brown watch and my rubber strap is too small. Their reply was ‘ The leather one might be slightly bigger!’. They didn’t look hard enough I think!!
Did you resolve this issue Stephen?
No I did not Duncan. In my error in not reading the specifications thoroughly I also to my horror scratched the glass which I’d assumed was sapphire but then found it was mineral. They are apparently doing a Sapphire replacement at some point but as for the strap, no joy. The reason I’m only seeing your post now is because I’ve just tried the watch on for the first time in ages and I’m now trawling the internet for a suitable strap. Shame as the watch keeps good time. Very disappointed on the whole though