Watches Win NATO Support
Not necessarily about what you think first... it's about the Nato strap and on how it is becoming more popular.
Also goes into history of said strap.
The watch strap is a type many call a NATO. Whether it is in fact a NATO is a subject of considerable online debate, like most everything to do with the world of fine watches and Bond.
Named for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, though likely created for the British armed forces, a NATO is classically a length of plain woven nylon with two stainless steel loops and a metal buckle. Like Bond or Galore, it is tough, resilient and hard to kill.
And it is a certifiable trend. At least it was during the huge Baselworld watch fair held in Switzerland in the spring, when large numbers of watchmakers showed their costly wares on NATO straps, and before then on the wrists of Billyburg hipsters, still the most reliable early adopters when it comes to matters of style.
Watch purists hate them. NATO straps “don’t belong on any watch that costs more than the strap,” sniffed one professed online arbiter known as the Watch Snob. For that matter, he added, they have no business supporting any timepiece to which “a leather strap can be attached.”
