Be Prepared! Looking At Alternative Strap Options For The MoonSwatch
OK, so the MoonSwatch might not quite yet be widely available online, but there’s no harm in making sure you’re fully prepared for when it is. I didn’t get my Mission To Mercury on the day of release. I had to wait until a couple of weeks after the launch, but the wait was worth it. Why? Because I was fully prepared with my replacement strap, ready to go.
Replacement strap? If you’re asking what’s wrong with the stock hook-and-loop option, the answer is “nothing”. There’s nothing wrong with it whatsoever, but it’s just not quite for me. My Mission To Mercury came with a silvery number which I wasn’t super keen on. If it had been black or something a little plainer, I might have given it a chance. So, knowing I wanted something else, I used the waiting time to do a little research and find a replacement.
When you get a new watch, you want to strap it on and start enjoying it as soon as possible. Knowing you want to replace the strap right away and not having the replacement on hand can dampen the “New Watch Alert” fun somewhat. I’ve been there before, leaving some watches for days or even weeks until I had the right strap. Thankfully, when my Mission To Mercury arrived, I had the strap waiting on my desk, ready to go. Knowing I’m not alone and that a fair few others have expressed their preference for a different strap, I thought I’d put together a few options I’d seen, which I thought looked like good alternative strap options for the MoonSwatch. I don’t have options for every Mission here, so let me know in the comments if you have some suggestions. Sharing is caring!
Mission To Mercury
It makes sense to start with the model I own, right? The Mission To Mercury is the darkest of all the Missions. With an anthracite-gray BioCeramic case and a matching dark gray dial with a black minute track, I wanted something to emphasize and complement the darkness. I saw the Mission To Mercury as the MoonSwatch equivalent of the Dark Side Of The Moon and possibly the most “serious” of all the 11 MoonSwatch models.
I am a big fan of sailcloth and Cordura-type straps, and I also like rubber. So I started looking for something in this vein until I came across the Cordura/Silicone Hybrid from Barton Bands. I was sold by Barton’s mixture of the Cordura with the flexibility and comfort of the silicone. The difficult question was which model to buy and with which buckle finish. I ended up choosing the black version with the Gunmetal Grey buckle. When my Mission To Mercury arrived, I immediately put the new strap on, and it was the perfect combination. It seemed that Instagram also approved, with over 3.7K people agreeing.
The only thing I wasn’t quite 100% happy with was my buckle choice. I had hoped that the Gunmetal Grey buckle would be a good color match to the BioCeramic case, but a black buckle would have been the wiser choice on closer inspection. To test out my theory, I decided to buy another strap. This time, the Smoke Grey version, but with the black buckle. The strap was another fantastic match, and the black buckle was perfect. Since I got the MoonSwatch Mission To Mercury, it has been my most worn watch! I put a large part of that down to the strap combination.
Mission To The Moon
The Mission To The Moon is the most “classic” looking of all the MoonSwatches. The dial is straight out of the Moonwatch playbook, and the lighter gray BioCeramic clearly aims to mimic the metallic color of the Moonwatch’s steel case. I feel that this makes straps a little easier to some degree, as if it works for the Moonwatch, it’ll likely work for the MoonSwatch. There is one exception, however: please don’t go putting steel bracelets on your MoonSwatch. It’s not big, and it’s not clever. Nobody is laughing with you; we’re laughing at you.
One of my favorite combinations on the venerable Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch is what many refer to as the classic “Bond” NATO. There’s something beautiful in its simplicity, and I think it looks superb. The gray and black stripes on the NATO perfectly harmonize with the Mission To The Moon’s identical color scheme.
There are plenty of choices for where to grab one for yourself, but the MoonSwatch in the images belongs to our Social Media Manager, Sinara. Her watch is on the excellent Bond NATO from Australian strap supplier, Artem Straps. Nacho, our Managing Editor, reviewed Artem’s NATO straps earlier this year and was very impressed. Given how neatly this Bond strap complements the Mission To The Moon, I don’t think you can go far wrong.
Mission To Uranus
No, you grow up. The Mission To Uranus inevitably garnered memes and jokes aplenty at the time of launch. It doesn’t matter how old we are or how serious we can be; butt jokes are always funny. Once we got past the sniggers and laughs, we found the Mission To Uranus was a bright little beaut. Those baby-blue tones are refreshingly unisex, and the white bezel is the perfect complement.
As we’ve established, the MoonSwatch straps are not my favorites. I don’t think they show off the watches to their best potential. Please do bear in mind, that’s very much my personal opinion. I’m not poo-pooing (no pun intended) anyone who likes the hook-and-loop straps. My colleague Nacho agreed with me, and I found out he’d bought a selection of straps to try pairing with the Mission To Uranus he’d bought for his girlfriend… a watch that quickly became a part of their shared collection rather than solely hers!
The pick of the bunch was a simple white NATO. Nacho sourced the strap in the photographs from Cheapest NATO Straps. As the name suggests, these are incredibly wallet-friendly. I’ve got an array of straps in my own overflowing strap box from the same company, and they’re decent straps for the minuscule price. I love the combination of the white strap to match the white bezel and hammer home the blue/white color scheme. To be honest, until seeing this strap combination, I wasn’t a massive fan of the Mission To Uranus. Isn’t it funny how a simple strap change can alter your perspective?
Mission To Neptune
The final pairing today is for the controversial Mission To Neptune. Why is it controversial? Well, you may have seen a few people complaining about the blue BioCeramic case leaving some blue residue on their wrists. There’s no hiding this, and it does happen. Ben’s Mission To Neptune in the photos was no exception, and it “blued” his wrist too. Despite this, the Mission To Neptune is a great-looking watch, and it probably wouldn’t be enough to put me off. I understand some people may not be too keen, however.
The watch is an all-out assault of blue. You might be tempted to try and offset this all-blue visage, but I’m of the opinion to just roll with it here. It’s funny because Ben’s strap combination was the first thing I thought of when I first saw the Mission To Neptune images. I very nearly bought this exact model for this exact strap combo. Where is this strap from, you ask? Well, it’s another from Artem straps.
Artem seems to have accidentally nailed the MoonSwatch strap alternatives here. The sailcloth number is super comfortable. I have a black one with gray stitching, and I love it. Being a fan of a sailcloth strap (I have numerous ones in my collection), the blue Artem seemed like a logical choice for the Mission To Neptune. My colleague Daan recently reviewed this exact strap for his Tudor Black Bay Blue, but he has since fallen out of love with the watch. Maybe he should get himself a Mission To Neptune to make good use of the strap?
What about you?
Now, I know this is just four of the 11 MoonSwatch Models, but we don’t have the complete set between the team. With that in mind, I’d love to hear from the Fratelli who own their own MoonSwatches. Have you swapped out your strap? If so, what did you go for? Let me know in the comments!
Follow me on Instagram: @davesergeant | @fratellowatches
