Want a watch strap that’s as comfortable as fabric, as light as rubber, as strong as a metal bracelet and as tactile as a Milanese mesh?
Any watch fan looking to tick all of the above boxes would normally expect to be a dab hand with a spring bar removal tool to experience all the above individually, but a new strap developed by Malaysian independent brand Ming appears to now offer the best of all worlds.
Photograph: Courtesy of Ming
The one strap to rule them all has been dubbed the Polymesh, and is 3D-printed from grade five titanium, and comprises 1,693 interconnected pieces (including the buckle) held together without any pins or screws. The only additional parts requiring assembly are the quick-release spring bars at each end that attach it to the watch—the articulated pin buckle is also formed in the same process.
Ming says that the strap, which is made up from rows of 15 equilateral triangles, meshed together and bookended by larger end pieces, “has more motion engineered into the radial axis than the lateral one,” leading to a supple end result that drapes like fabric yet retains the strength of titanium.
It has taken the company seven years to develop, working with partners Sisma S.p.A in Italy and ProMotion SA in Switzerland. Ming says notable challenges included the risk of components fusing together, and the fact that powdered titanium—the raw material from which the strap is laser sintered—is highly explosive. The straps each take several hours to produce, requiring hundreds of layers of additive manufacturing in an inert gas environment.
The company is not the first to use 3D-printing techniques for final products in watchmaking (as opposed to prototyping), but it is the only one using it for straps or bracelets. British start-up Apiar has debuted a 3D-printed watch case, as has Dutch brand Holthinrichs, which has created versions of its Ornament 1 in both 18k gold as well as stainless steel.
The Case for Straps
To the extent that straps have been an area for innovation in the watch world, recent attention has tended to focus on brands’ development of proprietary mechanisms for swappable straps, to varying degrees of success and popularity. Sustainability programmes that focus on leather alternatives such as reclaimed apple peel or mushroom-based material, or textiles woven from ocean plastic. Some have proven difficult to industrialize, and nearly all have been dogged by accusations of greenwashing.
