The problem with our previous belts

We released the first generation of our belt in 2016, and we really thought we had done everything right: full-grain, vegetable-tanned Italian leather, an Italian buckle in Zamak (a very strong alloy of zinc, aluminium, magnesium and copper), made in Brittany. It was when we asked the people who had bought it what we could improve that we came back down to earth: on some belts, the leather was coming apart in the middle.

Naturally, we refunded or replaced the belt of everyone who reported the problem to us¹. We also stopped selling it until we had "repaired" it, by adding a line of stitching that stops the layers coming apart.

That limited the damage, but in the end the whole episode cost us dearly:

• Financially: our manufacturer refused to accept responsibility (and so didn’t give us back a penny). In short, we lost money.
• In terms of image: we’ll let you imagine what customers thought of us when they saw their belt split in two.

That was also when we understood 2 things. 1/ we can’t trust our suppliers blindly. 2/ testing (in the lab and in real life) really, really matters. After this misadventure, we set up a process of systematic testing and quality control, a process we are still improving every day.

Anyway, a year later, in 2017, when we developed the second generation of our belt, we REALLY thought we had done everything properly: full-grain vegetable-tanned leather, a Zamak buckle, metal rivets, made in France, and a single layer of leather so that nothing could come apart. Oh, and we had also had the leather’s strength tested in a lab, and the results were so good that we told ourselves: this time it’s the one – we can guarantee this belt for 10 years.

To this day, nobody has claimed on the guarantee: the second generation of our belt is holding up well. And the rating customers give it is perfectly respectable:

Except that a few months after this belt was launched:

Once again, we asked our factory for an explanation, and this was their reply:

So it was time to:

1- Change factory.

2- Go looking for a buckle that really would never wear out.

In search of the indestructible buckle

This new search began in August 2018 and lasted a year. We quizzed a dozen or so suppliers about what makes a buckle last, without ever getting a satisfactory explanation. Some told us Zamak was the best quality there is, others swore by brass as the toughest, and others still assured us it made no difference. In short, there was no way to tell fact from fiction. We were about to give up when suddenly:

This customer, Anne, turned out to be a goldmine of information:

Two hours on the phone with her, and we had understood what we had spent a year searching for: a buckle that lasts is neither a Zamak buckle nor a brass one. It’s a stainless steel buckle (“inox” to its friends, as we say in French).

The scientific explanation: Zamak and brass oxidise over time and go dull. So a finish has to be added, such as nickel plating, which gives a silvery colour and protects against oxidation. On top of that goes a layer of varnish, because of potential nickel allergies. But if that finish is damaged even slightly by knocks, rubbing or the sweat of our hands, the oxygen in the air reaches the metal underneath and oxidation begins.

Stainless steel, on the other hand, does not rust: no finish needed. The raw metal is cast into the shape of the buckle and then polished – no risk of a finish flaking off. And to rule out any allergic reactions, we chose 316L-grade stainless steel (the same grade used in high-end watches).

So much for the theory. But as you will have gathered, these days we prefer to check everything ourselves, every time. We ran an accelerated ageing test in a lab on four different buckles: one in stainless steel, one in brass, one in Zamak from a so-called “premium” brand, and our old Zamak buckle.

The results confirmed what Anne had told us: the stainless steel buckle doesn’t budge, while all the others are worn down by rubbing and time.

In short, this is a buckle you can hand down to your children and grandchildren.

So why doesn’t every brand make belts with stainless steel buckles?

• Because they don’t know it’s better? Possibly.
• Because most suppliers don’t offer them? It’s true that you have to ask for a special development (and bear the associated costs).
• Because it’s much more expensive? That’s most likely the real answer: a Zamak buckle costs about €1.50, a stainless steel buckle... five times as much², i.e. €7. The vast majority of brands aren’t willing to pay 5 times more for their buckle, even if it extends the life of a belt enormously (if not for ever).

In search of a new factory

With the right buckle in the bag, we needed a partner we could trust to assemble the belt. We contacted several workshops in France, Portugal and Spain, and then, while chatting with Atelier Joly (who make our socks)...

Our second time working with a supplier from around Castres, in south-west France, and our second crush: Xavier really is friendly, hard-working, and he has a taste for neat finishing. He was the one who suggested a construction that makes it easy to change the leather strap and reuse the buckle indefinitely.

In search of the right leather

All that was left was to find a good leather. And for that, we didn’t have to look far: we went back to the same leather as our previous belts, which had scored top marks from customers and lab tests alike.

We are well aware that leather is a controversial material, especially for responsible brands. We had already tried to understand what goes on behind the scenes of this industry before launching our leather sneakers – our (long) article is available here. It’s one of the hardest questions we have ever had to deal with, because it means weighing up four factors that sometimes pull in opposite directions: our comfort, animal welfare, environmental pollution and the social question. For our sneakers, we had concluded that – for now – animal leather was the better choice.

For our belt, our conclusion is similar.

First, leather offers a level of comfort that synthetic materials struggle to match: it’s a living material that changes shape to follow the curve of your waist³ without cracking or getting damaged.

Second, if the leather is properly cared for and the buckle is solid, a belt can last for decades. Especially if you choose “full-grain” leather, the strongest part of an animal’s hide – where the fibres are densest.

And to minimise its negative impact on the environment and on animal welfare, we set ourselves the following rules:

1. The tannery must be in Europe, because the law there obliges it to protect its workers’ health and treat its polluted water: so we work with Lo Stivale, a well-known Italian tannery.
2. The hides must come from Europe, where practices are a priori more respectful of animal welfare and far less polluting than on other continents: ours come from farms in Brittany.
3. Wherever possible, choose vegetable tanning: it’s greener and, above all, it means the leather develops a “patina” over time – as the years go by, scratches and scuffs will leave their mark on the leather and its colour will darken. That isn’t a sign of poor quality, quite the opposite: the passing years will give this belt a personality of its own.

This is how it will age

Recently, we asked our customers to send us photos of the Loom belt they have been wearing for two and a half years, to get a clearer idea of how the leather of our belt ages. Here is the result:

You can see that the leather is marked where the buckle presses on it.

The only way to reduce this marking would be to make a belt in three layers: a "sandwich" of two strips of leather with a stronger plastic material in the middle. But that is exactly what we did for the first generation of our belt, and as you can imagine, there is no way we are taking the risk of it coming apart again. Another option: assemble the sandwich with stitching instead of glue. It would certainly hold longer, but stitching is a weak point: one bit of thread snaps and the whole belt is ruined (and we’re also less keen on the look). So we chose to live with what is, all things considered, a minor problem.

But so you can make up your own mind, here are some more pictures of Loom belts worn for several years:

And here is what people who have been wearing it for more than 2 years say about it:

The limits of our belt

Even though this is already the third generation of this belt, it still isn’t perfect. There are two things in particular we need to improve:

• The buckle is made in China. We are trying to push our (French) supplier to find a way to produce it closer to home (though they tell us we won’t get the same quality), and in parallel we are looking for other suppliers who produce in Europe and whose factories we can go and visit.
• Our packaging: our belt used to come in a lovely cardboard box… made in China. We wanted to find the same box made in France… but it cost €3 (if you’re keeping count, that’s 2 times the price of a Zamak buckle made in Italy). Until we find packaging that is ethical but more affordable, we have gone with the solution Xavier suggested: sheer fabric pouches made in Romania, which he uses for his other customers.

Update, April 2021: our belts now come in a nice pouch made in Italy from recycled cotton.

And there you have it

Even though it was a winding road to get the 3rd generation of this belt out, we are really happy with the result: for the second time, we have managed to make a product in France that is far better quality than anything on the market, even from high-end brands. To get there, we didn’t try to cut costs (because we know that usually means lower quality or lower ethics): given all the choices described above, this belt costs 50% more to produce than the previous generation: €20.80 instead of €13.50. We did our sums and decided to sell it for €55: for our customers, that is truly unbeatable value for money, and for us it leaves a reasonable margin to live on.

Update, April 2021:

• we received lots of messages asking us to make a slightly wider belt for a more casual look. A promise is a promise: the wide belt is available here.
• the steel we use is now 304L, because using 316L was what is known as "over-specification", in other words more performance than a belt will ever need. The advantage of 316L steel over 304L is that it withstands iodised and chlorinated atmospheres. Everything else about their performance is identical. Since we’re fairly sure nobody is going to go swimming in this belt, we now use 304L steel for its buckle.

‍

Who are we to say this?
You’re reading La Mode à l’Envers, a blog run by the clothing brand Loom. The textile industry is coming apart at the seams, and the planet is footing the bill. So whatever we manage to understand about this industry, we try to explain here. Because making clothes that last is good, but revealing, sharing and inspiring is even more powerful.
If you like what we write and want more, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here. Promise: we don’t write often, and we never spam.

‍

Footnotes

¹ By the way, if you have a belt from that generation that is coming apart too, email us at hello@loom.fr so we can refund you or send you a new one.

² In fact, the two metals cost roughly the same, but a steel buckle costs far more to make. Zamak has very good "castability", so a buckle can be cast in a single step. Steel, on the other hand, casts less well, so after casting it has to be machined to form the inside of the buckle – a slow and relatively expensive process.

³ Incidentally, the American trouser brand Bonobos made its name with a curved waistband that fits the body better than trousers with a straight waistband.