From Leather to Collar: How We Make Our Collars

Before a collar is a collar, it's just a piece of leather on a table.

What happens in between is the part you usually don't see.

You see the finished result: a colorful collar, neatly finished, ready for your dog's neck. But between the leather and that finished result sits a long list of steps, every one of them done by hand. Here's what that process actually looks like at DWAM.

Step 1: Choosing the leather

Everything starts with full-grain leather: the top, strongest layer of the hide, with its natural grain still intact. Not every piece of leather is the same, so before anything gets cut, it's checked for thickness, texture, and any natural irregularities. Those irregularities aren't a problem, by the way: they're exactly what makes leather natural and one of a kind.

Step 2: Cutting by hand

Every collar is hand-cut from the leather, using a template for the correct size. No press mold stamping out the exact same shape a thousand times: a person, a blade, and attention to every edge.

Step 3: Stitching and detailing

Next comes the stitching, and for many of our designs, the colorful details too: woven straps, beads, coins. That also happens piece by piece, by hand. This is exactly where the difference between "a collar" and "a DWAM collar" comes from.

Step 4: Hardware and finishing

Buckle, ring, and any charms get attached, edges get trimmed and smoothed, and the whole piece gets checked for strength and finish before it leaves our door. Every collar passes through the same hands that cut and stitched it: one process, start to finish, not an assembly line.

Why we keep doing it this way

Doing this whole process by hand takes more time than machine production. That's no secret, and it's exactly why most brands don't do it this way anymore. But it's also why every collar turns out just slightly different from the last, and why you can see and feel that difference.

Curious how to spot that difference yourself? Read How to Spot Quality Leather.

From leather to collar, in your home

Every time you pick up your dog's collar, you're actually holding this whole process: the carefully chosen leather, the handwork, the attention to detail. Browse our collar collection and see the result of that process for yourself.