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Walthamstow:anunlikelylocationforasaddler’s
workshop.ButonthetrainovertointerviewMia
Sabel – leather designer, maker and consultant
withafocusonwatch,fobandcuffstraps-alittle
eavesdropping on a conversation persuades
me that perhaps this isn’t the case. An elderly
couple sat just in front of me motion towards the
window. “That’s the River Lea,” the man says. “It
used to be the border between London and Essex.”
Border land. And as the train goes through
the Walthamstow marshland, one notices that
this isn’t London as a city. It feels as if London
is in different clothing here, using a different
vocabulary. It’s like the country in the city.
And this is what I notice about Mia Sabel’s
workshop too. On the outside, Mia’s house is a
modest terrace on a traditional suburban street.
But as you enter the house and go out into the
garden you see that Mia’s life is one of creating,
of doing things by hand: a vegetable and herb
patch; a wood store; a wood burning stove.
Mia Sabel
‘Bespoke Leather Design
For
Human | Horse | Home ‘
WORDS: OLIVER ZARANDI
PHOTOGRAPHY : DUNJA OPALKO

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The WARDROBE
And then there’s the workshop itself. Mia
explains that she could have rented one but she
decided to build one instead. Like the items she
makes, the workshop itself is handmade, unique
and carefully considered.
Onentering,Ithinkimmediatelyofthetrain
journey over, of borders and the ‘country in the
city,’ of a different vocabulary. I ask Mia to tell
me about the objects and tools first, the different
types of leather and items adorning the walls.
There’s the diamond awl she uses to open up
the stitching holes and the different colours of
vintageleathersthatsheuses:LondonTan,Light
Havana, racing green. There are the saddles and
reigns and stirrup leather on the wall too. I look
up and on the ceiling near the entrance there are
cardsfromhercustomers,thankingandpraising
her for the work she has done.
We speak briefly about getting to know a
craft, about patience and the rewards of sticking
with it. It’s clear from the workshop and Mia’s
vocabulary that she knows the craft inside out.
But she hasn’t always been a saddler. Mia’s
journey started ten years ago. “I quit my job as a
creative director for a bank in the city. I loved it
but got a little but burned out. I was in an office
in Canary Wharf on the seventeenth floor and
thought ‘what am I doing?’” She decided that she
needed something different. Her job in the city
was by no means uncreative: she worked with
branding, photography, creative directing. “But
I just needed to do my own thing. I took a year
out and knew I wanted to do something physical,
something with my hands.”
The desire to work with her hands ran in the
family. Her grandfather George Dobson was a
master carpenter and cabinetmaker and Mia
thought about millinery and tailoring before
deciding on saddlery. Millinery was ruled out
early on – “I didn’t like hats and didn’t wear hats”
–andtailoringdidn’thavetheappealofsaddlery,
which Mia thought was being outside, seeing
things, travelling around.
Mia decided to enrol on the only 2-year
full-time course in the country at Capel Manor
College in Enfield, a long way from being 17
floors up in Canary Wharf. The course was
mostly for 16 years old but there were mature
students there too, students like Mia who had
decided to change direction.
Mia explains: “It was all pretty hands on
and you learn all elements of saddlery, like bridle
making, saddle making and harness making.
Everything is hand cut, hand stitched and hand
polished.” It was this attention to detail that
appealed to Mia during her time on the course.
She got to learn about woodworking, metal work
and construction.
Her thinking was that, if she could make
saddles, she could make other things too. And
for a short time after finishing the course, Mia
explains that she took on everything. She made
belts, saddles, did repairs, made watch straps.
She wanted to keep learning. “I got known for
taking on jobs that other people wouldn’t do,” she
says. Even Madame Tussauds called up and
asked Mia to design Don Bradman’s cricket
gloves. She had never designed gloves before,
but she gave it a go. It was all smoke and mirrors,
she tells me, that she focused on making it look
beautiful.
Mia is used to this, however: she worked
in theatre at the start of her career. She knows
the art of making something look beautiful
but the items she makes in the workshop look
great on the inside as well as the outside. After
performing so many different types of job, Mia
decided to focus on something and to find her
USP. This turned out to be watch straps.
Just next to Mia’s workbench, covered in
awlsandothertools,Iseeanopenboxwithsome
of the most beautiful watch straps I’ve ever seen.
I pick one up and I bend the leather slightly.
I listen to the creak of the leather and feel the
gaugeofittoo.Mia’sworkshopdisplaysqualityin
its rich colours and leather draped over railings,
Even Madame
Tussauds called up
and asked Mia to
design Don Bradman’s
cricket gloves. She had
never designed gloves
before, but she gave it
a go. It was all smoke
and mirrors, she tells
me, that she focused
on making it look
beautiful.

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The WARDROBE
but you can hear it and feel it
too.Itisadelightforthesenses.
One of Mia’s customers
arrives for a watchstrap fitting.
He is not just your average
customer either. “I’ve been
collecting watches for 20 years,”
he says, adding that he is a self-
proclaimed watch nerd. Mia is
a consultant and meets either
in Sloane Square or here at her
home.
Mia says that she knows
watches differently from her
customers: “I look at watches
from a visual point of view. I
will suggest a strap based on
aesthetics, style, design and try
and find a balance with the
watch itself.”Shehastakenwhat
she learnt from making bridles
– which were made to measure
– and applied it to making the
watch straps.
Mia makes the watch
straps without any holes in
them. This means that when
she meets the customer, she
fits the watch to his or her
wrist and puts a single hole in
it. She is the only person in the
country doing this.
In fact, there aren’t that
many people in the world who
do this. You can go to boutique
stores or salons or visit a
Rolex or an Omega store and
you will end up paying £350
thereabouts for a generic strap.
Mia’s customer says that what
she does is highly specialised
and when I ask how many
people in the world are doing
this, he raises one hand: four
or five. A handful of people.
Mia knows one or two of them
but she stresses: “They make
the straps but they don’t do the
fittings. They don’t have the
service side.”
To give me an idea of
the workmanship that goes
into making a watch strap,
Mia shows me the ones that
don’t work. She opens a small
cupboard that she calls the
watch strap graveyard. It’s
fascinating to see what makes a
bad strap: some are punctured
with too many holes and others
are filled with newspaper.
Mia, however, uses a
double-handed saddler’s stitch
to build the straps using two
needles and one thread. She
shows this to me, weaving a
figure of eight and when I hold
one, I feel the weight of it, the
strength of the strap.
And how long does it take
to actually make the strap?
Well, firstly there are the
consultancy meetings and
this really depends on the
customer. Mia goes through
what the customer wants,
tailorsthestraptotheirspecific
needs. Then there is the actual
construction of the strap and
Mia shows me the ‘clam’ – an

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old, wooden clamp where the strap is held in
place and she works on it meticulously. There
is the waxing of the thread too, the sanding and
the smoothing of the leather. What sounds to me
like a very complex list of instructions, Mia does
by second nature – such is the nature of doing
something and doing it well.
Finally, there is the fitting. The customer
tells me that this isn’t just your average watch.
It’s a Rolex ‘Paul Newman’ Daytona. The last
time he Googled this, he saw just two or three
available - and that’s worldwide.
She begins to fit the strap to his wrist. One
thing they work out before is the position of
the strap on the wrist. This customer wanted
the watch right on the bone. It is put around his
wrist, but the customer has his hand underneath
to protect the watch. When the watch is on, the
strap goes through the holder and the customer
wiggles his wrist and opens and closes his hand.
And then Mia decides on where the hole goes on
thestrapandmakesasmallmark.Shetakesouta
revolvingholepunch.“This is the part I hate,”she
jokes. There’s no going back here. Silence. And
then she punches the hole. The finished product
is just stunning and the customer is positively
beaming.
As I get the train back, I think of what a
privilege it was to see Mia at work, to see her
dedication to a craft. Here is a woman who
works in a male dominated industry, somebody
who started with saddlery and then moved on.
“Nothing is wasted,” she told me. “I’ve diversified
and moved on.” And so, instead of staying still,
Mia moved forward and kept pushing herself
to learn new things. Although she left the
corporate financial sector ten years ago, it is safe
to say that some of those skills have stayed with
her.Themoderntradeofthecityandtheancient
trade of saddlery come together out there in the
workshop, in a garden in Walthamstow, a place
I now see as the likeliest place for this kind of
work.