Belts, your colours
Lab dips matched to your standard before bulk dyeing. Tap a shade.
Private label
Your main label, care label, hangtag and polybag. Nominated trims accepted.
A belt is a strip of leather and a buckle, which makes it the easiest leather product to make badly. A split leather strap with a sprayed finish looks identical to a full grain one on a shelf and falls apart in a year. The specification is short and every line of it matters. This page covers the belts we would source, what to specify, and where our bench honestly stands.
We are a sourcing desk in Dhaka. We do not own a factory, and we will be direct: we do not have a tannery or a leather goods unit on the bench. Bangladesh has a large leather sector, we have not vetted a unit in it yet. Read the note below, and read the rest anyway, because the specification does not change with the factory.
Leather belt types we source
Formal Belt
30 to 32 millimetres wide, smooth full grain, pin buckle, folded and stitched or a clean burnished edge. Sold with suits and judged on the edge finish.
Casual Belt
35 to 40 millimetres, softer or textured leather, often a heavier buckle. More forgiving to make and the volume item in most ranges.
Reversible Belt
Two leathers bonded back to back with a rotating buckle. The bond is the failure point: ask what adhesive and whether the edges are stitched as well as glued.
Braided Belt
Woven leather strands, stretchy in use, no holes needed. A hand operation and priced accordingly, and the strand width is the whole look.
Wide Belt
45 millimetres and up, usually with a statement buckle. Needs a thicker strap or it curls, so specify thickness with width.
Skinny Belt
20 to 25 millimetres. Thin straps twist unless the leather is firm, so this is the one where vegetable tanned or a bonded core earns its place.
Work Belt
Heavy full grain at 4 millimetres and up, roller buckle, rivets at the keeper. Built to carry weight rather than to be looked at.
Belt Strap
The strap alone with no buckle, for a brand that supplies its own hardware. Quote it separately, because the hardware is often half the cost.
Leather, specified properly
There are only a few numbers and they decide everything.
Type and layer. Full grain keeps the outer surface and is the only one that lasts. Top grain is sanded and corrected. Split leather with a coating is what most cheap belts are, and it delaminates. Bonded leather is ground offcuts pressed with glue and it is not leather in any useful sense. Say which you are buying and be aware which one you will be quoted if you do not.
Thickness in millimetres, and this is the number to insist on. 3.0 to 3.5 for a formal belt, 3.5 to 4.0 for casual, 4.0 and up for work. Below 2.5 a belt folds over on itself in use. Ask for it to be measured with a gauge at inspection, not taken on trust.
Tannage. Vegetable tanned is firm, holds its shape and ages. Chrome tanned is softer and cheaper. For belts, vegetable tanned or a combination tannage is worth the difference.
Construction. One solid strap, or two layers bonded, or a strap with a bonded core. A single solid full grain strap is the best of it and the most expensive per metre.
Finish and fastness. Ask for a rub fastness result. Dye from a cheap belt transfers onto a white shirt and that is a complaint you will hear about individually.
Edges, holes and hardware
Edges are the visible craft. Folded and stitched, raw and burnished, or painted. Burnished is traditional and durable; painted cracks if the coats are too few. Ask how many coats and flex the sample.
Holes and tip. Hole count, spacing and diameter, and the tip shape: round, pointed or square. The keeper count, one or two, belongs in the spec.
Buckle. Nominate it, or give us two grades to quote. Pin, roller, plate or automatic. Plating matters: a nickel plated buckle on a humid container ship spots unless the plating is done properly. Ask for a salt spray result.
Attachment. Stitched, riveted, or a snap so the buckle can be changed. A snap is a selling feature and costs very little.
Sizing, which is done two ways
Belts are sized either by waist size, where the middle hole matches the stated waist, or by total strap length. The two are different systems and mixing them produces belts that fit nobody. Say which you use and give the full size curve with the hole positions measured from the buckle end.
Ask for the size to be measured from the fold of the buckle to the middle hole, and state it in the specification, because that is where the ambiguity lives.
Where our bench stands
Said plainly: we hold knit, woven, sweater, denim and outerwear plants. We hold no tannery and no leather goods unit. Belts are cut on a strap cutter, skived, edged and punched on machines none of our plants owns.
What we will do with an enquiry: go into the leather cluster, find the units that make belts at your quality, visit them, take your specification in, and come back inside five working days with a quote from a unit we have stood inside, or a straight no.
Two useful facts. If your buyer requires LWG certification on the tannery, say it at the enquiry, because it narrows the list sharply. And belt minimums are low, often 100 to 300 pieces per colour, so a trial order that proves the thickness and the edge is cheap.
What to send with your enquiry
- Width and thickness in millimetres, and the leather type, layer and tannage
- Construction: solid strap, bonded layers, or bonded core
- Edge finish and stitch density
- Hole count, spacing and diameter, tip shape, keeper count
- Buckle nomination with plating, and attachment method
- Sizing system, and the size curve with hole positions from the buckle end
- Whether you require LWG certification on the tannery
- Quantity per colour and size, your target price and your ship date
Quality control, which we do regardless of whose unit it is
Inline inspection while the line runs. Final inspection to AQL 2.5 unless your standard differs, with the photo report before the goods move. On belts we measure thickness with a gauge at three points along the strap, check the layer and look for delamination at the edge on a cut sample, check hole spacing and the buckle to middle hole measurement against the size chart, flex the edge finish, test buckle and snap function, and run rub fastness on a cut sample.
Get a quote for belts
Tech pack or sketch with quantities per colour. A compared quote in 48 hours.
