For watches with an integrated bracelet.
On your watch, the bracelet does not begin where the case ends: it continues it. There are no two lugs with a spring bar between them, no measurement in millimetres to order. Whoever sold you a '20 mm' strap for a Royal Oak sold you a strap for another watch.
What lies beneath the bracelet
Three things, and they change from model to model.
The attachment. A screw bar, a through-pin, an end link that detaches. Some houses allow for it: they sell the watch on leather too, and the first link exists in a version for straps. Others do not: the bracelet is the only thing that attachment was ever designed to hold.
The profile. The case does not end straight: it has a curve, a shoulder, sometimes a step. The end of the strap must reproduce it to the tenth of a millimetre, otherwise a gap remains between the leather and the steel. That is where a strap made for that watch is told apart from one merely adapted.
The thickness. Where it enters the case, the strap is as thin as the link it replaces; at the wrist it returns to its own thickness. The transition between the two must not be felt.
How we build it
When it exists, we start from the manufacturer's attachment: the end link or the original adapter, and the strap is built upon it. When it does not exist, the end is built: leather and lining cut to the profile of the case, a core that holds the shape, the original pin or screw returning to its place.
The original clasp, when the attachment allows it, is refitted onto the new strap. Otherwise ours, in steel or in gold, in the width that the tapering decides.
An example: a Patek Philippe Cubitus, just released, no strap on the market. The right adapter was found and the strap was built upon it, in alligator, in four weeks.
For which ones not
Some attachments leave no room for anything but the bracelet designed for them: the link is part of the case, it does not come apart. We tell you this straight away, from the photograph, without asking you to send anything.
What we look at in the photograph
The back of the watch with the bracelet fitted: the screws or pins are visible, along with how the first link attaches. The side profile, where the case meets the bracelet. If you have the original leather strap or an adapter, those too. Three photographs are almost always enough to understand whether it can be done, and how.
The time
Four, five weeks from confirmation. At the atelier in Via XX Settembre or by video call, wherever you are: the measurement is taken from the archive or the photograph, the watch does not travel. Care for the first eighteen months is included.