Leather crafting: kindred art to watchmaking

Claude Bernard presents its third singaporean artisan partner, xie hui of stone for gold.

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Claude Bernard is a traditional Swiss watchmaker established in 1973 at Les Genevez, Switzerland. Breaking away from social norms and beliefs, the brand offers affordably-priced Swiss made watches that are individually hand-assembled by skilled watch-makers in Switzerland. There are no compromises on quality and each piece is made meaningfully and artfully for a growing group of consumers who value craft and quality tagged with a friendly price tag. Consequently, Claude Bernard partners and supports local artisans in its markets who reach out and appeal to this same group of consumers who value the passion of hand craftsmanship under the “Claude Bernard Artisans” programme.

This third artisan under the programme is Xie Hui (Stone), a young 20-something artisan owner and main leather-crafter of local atelier, Stone For Gold. Established in 2008 after the roaring success of Stone’s online e-store in hand-crafted leather key pouches and phone covers, Stone For Gold is located in the heart of Jalan Besar heritage district, the epicentre of traditional craft making in Singapore. In 2011, Stone shifted his focus to hand-crafted leather watch straps as it became the biggest trend that year with lots of request coming in, increasing his business revenue. His advantage was the ability to custom-make different types of watch straps in over 100 leather colours, stitching, linings and tannings, including exotic skins from snake, ostrich and crocodile.