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History of the NATO Strap
The strap that fits every watch
There are watch straps designed to impress, and then there are watch straps designed to work. The NATO strap is firmly in the second category, which is probably why it's ended up doing both.
Few straps have had a more unlikely journey from military procurement document to fashion staple. The NATO has been worn by soldiers, spies, and civilians who've never seen a day of active duty, on luxury Swiss watches, everyman Japanese watches, and everything in between. It costs a fraction of the watch it sits on, and somehow, that's never been a problem.
So how did a nylon strap with a slightly awkward fit become one of the most beloved strap designs in history? It starts, like most good things, with function.
Origins
The NATO strap wasn't born in 1973, that's just when it got its paperwork.
The idea goes back further to World War 1 when pocket watches were still the dominant choice for men. Soldiers needed to read the time quickly and keep their hands free, and a watch sitting in a waistcoat pocket wasn't going to cut it in a trench.
The solution was simple: wristwatches. Wristwatches were already popular among women by that time, and they allowed soldiers to quickly check the time without fumbling for their pocket watches. These watches were often worn on a pull-through strap similar to what the NATO strap is today, and sometimes with a bund pad under the watch to protect the wrist from extreme temperatures.
That spirit of practical improvisation is exactly what the NATO strap is built on, and while the materials got better and the design got standardised, the core idea never really changed.
Where it got its name
In 1973, the British Ministry of Defence issued single-piece nylon straps with NATO Stock Numbers, or NSNs, for military use. The NSN is where the NATO strap gets its official name, though you'll also hear it called the G10 strap, a reference to the G1098 form that soldiers had to fill out to be issued one.
The design was deliberate, a single piece of nylon that threaded underneath the watch case rather than attaching at both ends like a conventional strap. This meant that if either spring bar failed, which spring bars do and often at the worst possible moment, the watch would stay on your wrist. It might slide around uncomfortably, but it wasn't hitting the floor.
That detail matters more than it sounds, because soldiers in the field can't afford to lose a watch. The NATO strap solved that problem with a piece of nylon and a few extra rings, no moving parts, no exotic materials, no complications.
It was also easy to swap, quick to dry, and cheap to replace, and for the British military, that was a practical no-brainer. For the rest of the world, it would eventually become something else entirely.
The Bonds
If any single factor launched the NATO strap into popular consciousness, it was James Bond, or more accurately, two very different versions of James Bond.
Sean Connery's Bond first appeared wearing a NATO in Goldfinger and Thunderball in the mid-1960s, before the strap was even officially standardised. He wore it on a Rolex Submariner 6538 with a black, red, and green striped strap on one of the most iconic watches ever made, and it looked effortless in the way that things only look effortless when someone genuinely doesn't care about looking effortless.
The image stuck. An undersized cloth strap on a luxury Swiss watch, worn by the most stylish fictional character in cinema, it shouldn't work, and it absolutely works.
Then came Daniel Craig. In Spectre, Craig's Bond wore a black and grey NATO on an Omega Seamaster 300, and the contrast was just as sharp. A softer, more subdued strap against a bold modern sports watch, where Connery's Bond wore the bold tricolour stripe, Craig's Bond wore the understated two-tone. Two different interpretations of the same idea: a good watch deserves an honest strap.
Form and function
The Bond connection gave the NATO cultural cachet, but the reason it stayed popular is simpler - it's genuinely a good design.
A NATO strap changes the character of a watch in a way that leather and rubber don't quite replicate. There's an informality to it, a looseness, and when you put a NATO on a Submariner it suddenly looks less like something you wore to a meeting and more like something you wore on a boat. That's not a downgrade, for a lot of people, that's exactly the point.
They're also practical in a climate like Singapore's as nylon dries almost instantly, doesn't absorb sweat the way leather does, and handles heat without stiffening or warping. You can wear one to the beach, rinse it off, and it's fine by the time you get home.
And because the strap threads under the case, it adds a second layer of security that conventional straps simply don't have, which for everyday wear on a watch you actually care about, is not nothing.
What we offer
At Nomad, we offer NATOs in a range of colourways, but two stand out.
The olive NATO is the quieter option, earthy, versatile, and low-maintenance about its own good looks. It sits well on tool watches, a Submariner, a Black Bay, a Seamaster, without shouting about it, and if you want a strap that disappears into the background in the best possible way, olive does that without any effort.
The black and yellow stripe is the opposite, a racing-inspired colourway that adds energy to any watch it touches. Clean and graphic, it reads bold without being loud, and on a sportier case it feels purposeful, while on a dressier watch it creates an interesting tension that somehow works. This is the strap you put on when you want people to notice, but you'd rather they couldn't explain exactly why.
Both use a single-piece construction that stays true to the original G10 spec, because the best reason to change a design is to improve it, and in this case, there wasn't much to improve.
Final thoughts
The NATO strap has survived for over a century because it solved a real problem and never stopped being useful. It didn't become iconic through marketing, it became iconic because soldiers trusted it, Bond wore it, and collectors eventually figured out it made their watches look better.
That's a pretty good track record for a piece of nylon.
