Aftermarket Panerai Review

Cavalcanti Straps Review

Cavalcanti Panerai Straps

Origin: Indonesia
Construction: Lock-Stitched
Materials: New, Vintage and Exotic Leathers and Hides
Buckles & Tubes: No Tubes or Buckles
Price Range: $100-300
Website: Click Here
Date of Review: February 9th, 2013

Cavalcanti is a strapmaker from Indonesia, which is a country rich with experienced leather craftsman. I have owned several straps from Indonesia, but Cavalcanti has definately taken it to the next level as far as design and execution of these straps. The offer customizable and personalizable straps in all sorts of unique finished and styles, with a lot more character than the bulk of the strapmakers out there.

The innovative styling and custom hand-dyed finishes do come at extra expense to buyers, however, but you get what you pay for. These are some of the coolest straps I have ever owned.

Above is a close-up of the two straps, the strap at the top is the Anarchy strap, and the one below is the Numquam Non Paratus (Latin for Never Unprepared).

The Anarchy strap has an awesome hand dyed antique finish on it, with what Cavalcanti describes as Light Grey stitching. The stitching looks more like a slate blue-grey to me against the leather, but either way it looks really cool.

The Numquam Non Paratus features a more traditional brown color with vintage tan stitching, but has some stamping done to it with a peace sign and the straps namesake stamped into the strap and given an antiqued finish to it. While the peace sign is a bit too "hippie" for me, I can live with it and the Latin name stamped on it looks pretty badass.

Both straps have raw unfinished edges, which reveal that they have a third layer of leather sandwiched in-between the two outer layers. It is good they do not use fillers for their inner layers, but at this price I would expect nothing but leather. The edge of the Numquam Non Paratus reveals some of the custom red leather sandwiched piece that is also visible from the buckle holes. The red is a custom option that you can request, and adds some interesting highlighting color to it - I like it. The Anarchy strap has the normal sandwich layer of white or natural leather (not shown).

Here you can see the antique finishing done to the stamping on the strap, giving it that faint black outlining and a great vintage look. You can also see how the stitching stops to allow the offset stamping, another nice detail that Cavalcanti has considered in designing this strap.

One thing that is not captured in the photos is the texture and feeling of Calvalcanti straps, at least these two. The surface of the straps is like an ultra-matte type of a smoothness, a lot drier feeling than most leather, but still has the impression and feel of a high quality product. This is a new type of finishing and treatment that I haven't seen used on straps before and its very cool. The finish alone sets these straps apart from others, and gives these straps a unique look and feel.

The straps are crafted with one fixed keeper and one floating keeper, both 1.2cm wide, which they call "double ring type". They actually line the keepers too! Just like Dangerous9 does on his ultra high end straps. That is a nice little touch again that Cavalcanti does that speaks to their attention to detail and care in craftsmanship.

Overall a superb product that stands out. Cavalcanti straps are beautifully crafted unique straps that are fit to be worn with your Panerai. While pricing might be a bit higher than you are used to paying for straps from Indonesia, I wouldn't be too concerned because these are truly worth it.

Straps As Shown:
Model: MLT-D02 Numquam Non Paratus
Leather: Premium Calf Leather
Thickness: 4.0 mm
Keeper Type: Double Ring Type 1.2 cm
Stitch Color: Vintage Tan
Edge Finish: Raw Edge
Price: $240

Model: VTG-D03 The Anarchy
Leather: Premium Calf Leather
Thickness: 4.0 mm
Keeper Type: Double Ring Type 1.2 cm
Stitch Color: Light Grey
Edge Finish: Raw Edge
Price: $200