My go-to has always been Michael on instagram, his handle is @duke_mantee . He makes some of the most beautiful belts I’ve seen, he’s done everything from 30/40s style novelty belts to more western styles. I have two belts from him and I can’t recommend him enough More on reddit.com

https://www.hanksbelts.com/ More on reddit.com

Metalwood makes one similar to this one for $108 More on reddit.com

Here’s the whole album (The rest of this album is a bunch of pictures I love and have used as my own personal style inspiration) Now I realize this post is a little niche, but regardless I want to share it with you anyways! When most people think of leather belts, they probably think of something like this but I tend to think more towards the past. I don’t exactly remember when I learned of these belts, it was something I remember seeing in random old pictures here and there. But one day I decided , we’ll I think I can make that-(I tend to go all in on things once I get an idea). If you’ve ever walked into a tattoo shop, you’ve probably seen this picture of CPT. Elvy . I remember thinking” that’s a really unique belt”. Turns out these studded western belts were quite popular during the 30’s-50’s. They’re part of Americana clothing but it’s an accessory I don’t often see being worn or really talked about. It all kind begins when I saw I decided to attempt studding an old vintage belt from my uncle . It turned out okay but didn’t have much flow or direction. I remember seeing a levis add online for a LVC T-shirt and immediately noticing the belt. I decided to attempt to replicate it as best as I could. It turned out to be really nice and quite fun to do. Still, I wanted something that looked more vintage, a wider belt with a square buckle. I had seen the RRL belts, but I didn’t want to dish out $200+ for a belt. Which eventually lead me to try an make one from scratch. What I did was buy leather strips, studs,buckles, rivets, and a few basic tools and went to work. I didn’t make any patterns, I really just did everything by eye. Overall I think these two are really my favorite. They turned out well and look half decent. Here they are btw Overall these aren’t something I see getting really big, they will probably stay pretty niche to the Vintage Americana nerds like myself, but still it’s something I’m passionate about and wanted to share! I’ve had a few people ask me about making them a custom belt on other threads in the past two weeks. This is definitely something I’ve thought about before, when I made the other two from scratch, each one only took about two or so hours from start to finish. I really wasn’t taking my time on them either. I think if I were to take some time to meticulously lay out the patterns, I could make something worthy of selling. Also I need to get materials , but the shop I go to has been closed down due to beer virus. Edit- I’ve added a few more links here and there, thanks for again for checking this out! More on reddit.com