First Watch Line for a US Leather Goods DTC Brand

First Watch Line for a US Leather Goods DTC Brand

Fielding & Co. sells leather bags and small goods through its own Shopify store out of Austin, Texas — a five-person team, no wholesale accounts, no retail partners. In late spring they emailed KODA asking about adding a watch to their lineup: something in the same tan-and-brass aesthetic as their bags, meant to be photographed next to them on the same product pages. They wanted 80 units to start. Just 80, to see if their existing customers would actually buy one before committing to anything larger.

Eighty units is below where KODA's standard quartz build becomes cost-efficient — tooling and setup costs get spread across too few pieces, and the per-unit price that comes out the other end is hard for a small brand to stomach. The account rep flagged it internally: either quote honestly and risk losing the inquiry, or push for a bigger number the client hadn't asked for and probably didn't want.

The back-and-forth took three weeks, longer than it should have for an order this size. Some of that was on Fielding & Co.'s side — internally, the two founders weren't fully aligned on whether a watch made sense for the brand at all. One thought it diluted their focus on leather; the other had already mocked up product photos. They went quiet for eight days mid-negotiation while they sorted that out, which from KODA's side just looked like a stalled deal.

When they came back, KODA proposed splitting the difference: 80 units at launch, but Fielding & Co. would cover half the mold cost as a one-time fee rather than KODA absorbing it into an unsustainable per-unit price. In exchange, KODA cut the sample lead time from the usual 12 days to 7 by skipping a full pre-production sample round and going straight to a confirmed prototype with photos and material swatches at each stage instead. It wasn't a discount — it was a different way of splitting the same risk, and it let both sides commit without either one absorbing a number that didn't work for them.

Production ran nine days, case in brushed 316L steel with a genuine leather strap dyed to match their existing bag tan, brass-toned hardware to mirror their buckles. One detail nearly got missed: the strap dye lot KODA sourced first ran slightly redder than the swatch Fielding & Co. had approved, close enough that it might have passed on a rushed check. Their photographer caught it before the batch shipped, comparing the strap against an actual bag under the same studio lights they'd use for product shots. KODA re-dyed the batch on a second lot, adding four days to the timeline but landing within one shipping window of the original date.

The watches went live on Fielding & Co.'s site in July, listed at $148, bundled as an add-on with their bestselling tote. They sold through the 80-unit batch in eleven days — mostly to repeat customers who already owned a bag. In August they placed a second order, 250 units this time, and asked whether KODA could also do a version with a fabric strap to match a canvas bag line they were planning for fall.