Milano Straps Two Piece Eco NATO – Counter Point

This season we are taking a new approach to getting more watch strap reviews to you, the reader. As often as possible, I will have a counter point where I will let a good friend of mine, Joe, a long-time watch fan and connoisseur of vintage Seikos and has the best collection of eclectic Casios I have ever even heard of. Joe has offered to review a watch strap as well and see what he thinks. Often times Joe approaches things from a very different angle than I do, so it is very refreshing to see a watch strap review from an entirely different and knowledgeable perspective. I know you will enjoy his thoughts on this watch strap. Buckle up.

—-Stephen

Introduction, or “who the heck is this guy, and how did he get here?”

My name is Joe and I’ve known Stephen from Strapsense for many years. To say he encouraged and enabled my watch hobby would be an understatement and at this point we spend quite a bit of time talking about, and making questionable decisions with the purchase of, watches. We were chatting a few weeks ago and he mentioned that he was going to resume his strap reviews after taking a hiatus. I mentioned an idea I’ve had in my head to start writing reviews of the watches I have in my collection (shameless self promotion: you can see my random and sporadic posting of my watches on Instagram at @JoeSeiko) and while I’m still working to establish my overall theme, Stephen offered the opportunity to potentially contribute to his Strapsense website. I said I’d think about it and shortly thereafter, Stephen had put a strap in my hands to help tease my creativity. Initially, I wasn’t sure what sort of fresh approach I could provide, but as soon as I opened the box the strap came in, I had a flash in my brain and knew what I wanted to do.

One of the things I really like about the Strapsense reviews is that each strap gets assessed with the same formulaic approach to provide the reader with an impartial summary. Looking back over the years, the reviews have covered everything from very affordable options, through artisanal offerings that sell for more than some of the watches in my collection. As such, whenever I pick up a new watch that needs a strap, I go right to Stephen to see what he’d recommend since I view him as the de facto expert at all things watch strap. I feel that Strapsense diligently covers the physical reviews of a strap with candid knowledge of desirable and detracting aspects, and that there’s no reason to try and duplicate that. So, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to provide a fresh perspective by taking a strap and giving a type of “common-person” blind review.

For the most part, I don’t know much about the traditional grading of leather and other materials of construction and I’m a bit daft at understanding what makes a Really Expensive Watch Strap. But what I do know is what I can observe when something is in my hand. By considering all aspects, from how it’s packaged to how it wears, I will provide my honest assessment of how much I think the strap would retail for, and also how much I would feel comfortable paying for the strap. So without further adieu, let’s talk about this strap from Milano Straps.

First Impressions

Packaging: this strap arrived in a metal tin embossed with the Milano Straps logo, and (presumably) company tagline, “High Quality Italian Leather”. Within the tin is a drawstring cloth pouch with the logo and tagline screen printed on one side. Tucked within the pouch was the strap. Overall, the packaging gives the impression of a higher end product; certainly higher than mid-range. 

Strap Materials: this two-piece strap is primarily made of a synthetic fabric and has leather reinforcement decoration at the spring bars. The leather is marked on the undersides with the company logo and tagline on the long half, and “Made in Italy” with the strap width on the short half. The long half has nine adjustment holes. The strap keepers are embossed leather with reinforced stitching at the seam. Light brown contrast stitching is used on the leather and at the buckle. The leather is soft and supple, feels nice and not plastic-y. It bends easily and retains the bent shape. The fabric is also soft to the touch, bending easily and holding shape. 

The side edges are woven and the adjustment holes and cut ends are melted with only a small amount of fraying. Overall, the strap has a better than average feel with the leather reminding me of a nice pair of loafers I once saw but couldn’t afford, and the fabric reminding me of a seatbelt – comfortable enough to make skin contact for a long duration.

Buckle: brushed stainless steel with no markings on the outside. On the underside, the buckle is engraved with the “MSlabstraps” logo. I would characterize the buckle as a fairly standard rectangular style with good proportions. It’s a simple, safe (in a positive way) design that won’t distract from the watch.

Overall this is a nice buckle, I’d gladly transfer it to other straps with lesser quality buckles and it’s plain enough to probably work in most applications.

Miscellaneous: the packaging also had a branded double sided spring bar tool included, with the pin and fork tips protected by knurled threaded caps. The spring bars are quick release style but were “reversed” from what I’ve typically seen before (i.e. the QR pin is at the bottom when changing the strap). That isn’t a big deal except for making it feel awkward when I was fumbling trying to install the straps. Overall, the quick release pins are a nice touch which I always appreciate, and the spring bar tool was a nice add-on. 

The Wearing Experience

Install: I used the provided spring bar tool to remove the bracelet from my Casio Oceanus OCW-T200 and then attached the short half of the strap. As mentioned before, with the quick release spring bar pin at the bottom of the strap instead of the top, I felt like I was trying to use left-handed scissors as a righty. A true first-world problem if there ever was one, I managed to get the buckle half attached and then moved on to the long half. And this is where it went south… I got the first side of the spring bar installed but couldn’t get the other side to seat correctly. After far longer than it should have taken, I looked closer and determined the spring bar was actually longer than the expected 20 mm. It took a bit of finagling but I was able to carefully extract the spring bar from the strap and sure enough, it looks to fall somewhere between 21 and 22 mm.

For the sake of a review, I reused one of the straight spring bars from my watch (and used the included spring bar tool again), and got everything installed. Mission accomplished.

Wrist Comfort: My wrist is about 7.25” and this strap came together at the fourth hole and the watch fit well on my wrist-bone and is slightly loose when it slips back up my arm. The fabric is soft on my skin and I like how it bends and complies without creating pressure points. I did find that there was some prickly feeling on the underside of my wrist and I’ve determined that it’s caused by the cut and heat sealed edge of the strap at the buckle. I’ve resorted to slipping the first strap keeper loop down to the buckle pin and over the cut edge to keep it from irritating my wrist. Overall, it wore very nicely over the couple of weeks I had it on; no complaints here.

What I Think is the Expected Cost

Factors: Nice leather, soft fabric, brush finished custom buckle, quick release spring bars, packaging and spring bar tool. This is essentially a two-piece NATO/seatbelt strap with a small amount of leather accents. The materials are nice but there doesn’t appear to be a high level of bespoke manufacturing as there would be with a full-leather strap. The packaging and included spring bar tool help to increase the perceived value.

Expected Price: I could see this selling for $80 – $100 on the high end, depending on how it was marketed.

What I’d Pay

$40-50. At the end of the day, I feel like this is a 2-piece NATO strap with some leather decorations sewn on. It wears fine and the tin, pouch, and spring bar tool are nice “freebies” but don’t add significantly to the value in my mind. Inherently, I have a difficult time coming to terms with a “luxury NATO” strap as they’re supposed to be rugged and utilitarian (I’m looking at you, Omega NATO strap for the Speedmaster). So I think that for this nice feeling fabric with the added leather and packaging, somewhere in the sub-$50 range would be appropriate.

Summary

Overall, this was a solid watch strap. I thought it was certainly of above average material and I found it mostly comfortable, aside from the irritating heat-cut of the strap at the buckle. It’s possible that, over time, this would crack and soften up. The little springbar size oops was unfortunate but not a deal breaker (I highly suspect the manufacturer would make this right if this was a purchased product), and I admit that having taken the strap on and off a few times now, I’ve gotten used to the backwards quick release pins. On a side note, while my intent was not to actually factor in how well the strap worked on the watch, I found that this strap on the Oceanus gave it a very nice “field watch” appearance. The olive color of the strap paired nicely with the green dial and complimented the blue logo much better than I expected, so here’s one more gratuitous shot of the strap on the Oceanus:

Postscript

After writing the review, I went and looked up this strap on the Milano Straps website and saw that it is called the “Military Green Two Piece Eco NATO Strap” and the fabric portion is made from recycled plastic bottles. List price is $56 which seems about right given the eco-green aspect. If there were a sale or discount code, I think this strap would be an entirely cost-appropriate purchase (Side-side Note: one of the pop-ups at the site entrance was for 10% off by providing an email).