Scaling handcrafted service with tech: The Strap Tailor’s Strap Designer for custom watch buyers
No compromise between personal service and profitability — with a 3D‑configurator that shows each strap on the watch instantly, from texture to stitching, cutting sales time and boosting margins.
England
Bespoke watch strap design and manufacturing
Made‑to‑order
UK & International
B2C luxury segment
Small dedicated team
3D Configurator
Real-Time Pricing
Advanced Business Rules
Shopify Integration
Lead-Capture Workflow
Automated Order & Spec Generation
Introduction
When personality matters
Watch straps, in The Strap Tailor’s hands, become small, wearable expressions of identity. Each piece is cut, stitched, and finished in their London workshop, crafted for customers who care just as much about what’s on their wrist as what’s behind it. Over the years, the business grew not through mass production, but by offering something entirely personal, and with that came the beauty and the burden of true customization.
Traditional online shopping wasn’t built for this level of individuality, and many customers wanted to see how the strap would look before placing an order. They wanted to experiment, compare, and fine-tune, and the company needed a way to make that experience feel as refined as the product itself. Without adding additional hurdles for the customer and their team.
The challenge:
Maintain one-to-one service at growing scale
Every order came with its own preferences: a specific leather, a stitch color, maybe a detail they’d seen once on Instagram. This is the heart of The Strap Tailor’s appeal – a truly bespoke process. But with each new customer came more emails, more decisions to clarify, more combinations to double-check.
"
Some days, we’d start with 400 emails. Most of them were asking the same thing: ‘Can you show me what it would look like?’
David Richards
Founder of The Strap Tailor
Maintaining the personal touch while keeping orders moving became hard to sustain. The business needed to figure out a smarter way for customers to explore possibilities on their own, without losing the feeling of one-to-one service – the 3D configurator.
Where craftsmanship meets functionality
A Strap Designer that feels hand-made, just like the product
Working with Digital Tails Group, The Strap Tailor replaced email threads with a single, intuitive space embedded directly into their Shopify store. Internally, it’s a fully custom 3D configurator. Publicly, it’s known as the Strap Designer – a tool that lets customers design and customize their strap the same way it’s built in the workshop, selecting:
Materials – customers can explore a variety of materials including Badalassi, Shell Cordovan, Ostrich, and other premium leathers, all rendered with real grain and depth
Details – fine-tuned stitch patterns, thread colours, edge paints, padding, and buckles
Instant feedback – every change is reflected instantly on a high-fidelity 3D model, with live price updates as the strap takes shape
Ready for the bench – once the order is placed, the configurator generates a spec sheet and full breakdown for the workshop, no back-and-forth needed
The Strap Designer was built to mirror the care and flexibility of a bespoke process. It makes it easy for customers to visualise their strap, experiment with ideas, and place orders with clarity and confidence.
Grounded in what matters
Tech that respects the brand
The Strap Tailor was looking for something intentional and something to blend into the brand’s experience, both in how it looked and how it worked.
How it works
Error‑free orders, seamlessly integrated into Shopify
A robust backend system connects product logic, visuals, and store data in real time. The configurator runs on a custom-built WebGL rendering layer, lightweight but powerful enough to handle material realism. Each configurable element is tied to a logic engine that validates choices as customers design their straps. If a certain material isn't compatible with a certain stitch or finish, the system won’t allow the combination.
On the storefront side, the configurator is fully embedded into the Shopify ecosystem without relying on third-party plugins. Real-time pricing updates, variant mapping, cart syncing, and checkout work natively, providing customers experience with no interruptions.
Built for the long term
To make sure The Strap Tailor’s team could stay in control, the configurator comes with a modular admin panel built for non-technical users. New strap types, colorways, pricing tiers, or thread styles can be added in minutes. Materials and photos can be swapped, reordered, or archived with no developer required.
The system uses dynamic templates, meaning visual assets and logic rules don’t need to be rebuilt from scratch when introducing a new product. The backend also includes a live preview environment, allowing the team to check combinations before they go live, a small but powerful tool that helps keep things error-free.
Smarter logic, fewer mistakes
The shift from email-based orders to structured digital input makes a real difference. Instead of interpreting descriptions like “the brown one with cream thread” or chasing down missing buckle options, the workshop receives a full specification that’s already been validated.
Every choice is stored as clean, machine-readable data, mapped to materials, SKUs, and internal codes. This speeds up order processing but also reduces costly rework, delays, and communication loops. Fewer mistakes, faster output, and a process that scales without losing its hands-on nature.
From uncertainty to ease
We took on the complexity so the project moved forward effortlessly
As with most of our projects, it’s never about coding only. Because every solution is custom, we need to understand the craft behind it. Our team took the time to understand how The Strap Tailor works: how orders are handled, how materials are selected, and how their customers’ choices are made. That understanding shaped the early concept, and every decision that followed.
"
Once we understood how the business operated, we were able to support everything around it. Not just the tool, but the entire flow behind it.
Nick Markou
Sales Manager, Digital Tails Group
Clear communication, a well-defined scope, and a full-service approach kept the process smooth and easy. Nothing lost in translation, no surprises along the way – just a partnership that worked.
"
Honestly, the process was easier than I expected. Nick and the team just got it and took care of everything. I didn’t have to be involved as much as I thought I would.
David Richards
Founder of The Strap Tailor
Why it matters
The digital home of bespoke
The configurator or the Strap Designer now sits at the heart of the made-to-order experience – a natural extension of The Strap Tailor’s philosophy and process. It lets customers co-create with confidence and gives the brand space to keep doing what it does best: focus on quality. And as their product range and customer base grow, the system is already built to grow with it.
Contact us