The Spring Made Story
As the oldest in my family, I was often needed to help my parents with various home improvement projects in our 1960s beach bungalow. My mom cared a lot about getting everything just right and would often have us redo a project multiple times until she decided it was good enough. This drove me crazy as a teenager! However as I get older, I see I might have inherited some of her obsessive need to get things just right.
When I went to college at Brigham Young University, I studied manufacturing engineering. I learned the importance of honing each stage of production. I was fascinated by lean manufacturing and how small but significant changes could make a world of difference to a finished project. Since graduating, I have spent the last 15 years working in engineering and production and have had a masterclass in what works and what doesn’t. As I helped others design and market their products, I saw great products destroyed by bad processes and good intentions fail because they weren’t lean enough to adapt.
As a lifelong student of quality design and quality production, I became drawn to the world of watchmaking. Watchmakers are masters of perfection. They are known for their careful attention to detail and a manufacturing process that has been honed for centuries. Watches are the pinnacle of design and engineering balanced in a perfect little package. As my watch collection grew, I wondered why some of the same care and quality found in the watch itself didn’t continue to the strap. This is when I had the idea to create a watch strap that solved a very basic need I had: getting a good fit. Did I mention I like to get things just right?
My first prototypes were made in my shop with materials I had laying around. I tested them on my own watches and had friends and family try them out. I gathered feedback and tweaked my design until I found a simple but effective mechanism that worked every time. I changed my materials over time and ended up with a strap that I think thoughtfully and beautifully enhances the watch-wearing experience. I hoped there would be others out there like me (and my mom) who cared about getting things just right so I opened Spring Made shop online in 2018 to share a product that had become indispensable to my own watch collection.
Some people think the smartphone was the death of the wristwatch. But I have found many millennials like myself who are embracing simpler technologies– well-designed products that do exactly what they are designed to do every-damn-time. Rather than sucking away our time and attention, we want products that give us more time. We are tired of manufactured obsolescence and more junk for the landfills; we crave something that lasts. We want an heirloom that can be passed on to our children and grandchildren. One of my favorite watches isn’t the fanciest, but it’s one I inherited from my grandfather after he passed away.
Once I opened my shop, I learned there are a lot of people like me who think getting the right fit should not be an afterthought, it should be part of the design. My success with watch straps had me thinking about what other basic needs were getting overlooked. That led me to designing Spring-Made belts that utilized the same simple technology as my straps. Solving a common problem in a simple and aesthetic way is addicting, and I am always brainstorming new products for the shop.
Our products are carefully designed and thoroughly tested by myself. The metal pieces are machined overseas but the final product is assembled and sewn in my workshop in Provo, Utah. In my free time, I volunteer with the Utah Horological Society and love to spend time in the mountains with my wife and three year old son. I am always happy to talk shop so feel free to email me with questions or feedback about my products. Follow along for my latest designs and adventures at @spring_made_shop on Instagram.
Austin Spring, Founder and CEO of Spring Made
