News 
After creating watch straps for over 70 years, Brasport, a holding company from La Chaux-de-Fonds, is now mobilising its expertise with the launch of a new start-up, Noomoon.
With this fifth proprietary entity the group has made a U turn: provisionally abandoning leather for the benefit of a fluoroelastomer and going straight to the heart of the digital era with The LABB, an innovative and patented wristlet. This new adventure will make its official debut on 15 November next on the Kickstarter community financing platform and is expected to make waves reaching out into the Apple universe.
With the Noomoon brand, Alain Dubois, Brasport CEO, is attacking a new market segment and new distribution circuits. As with all his projects, his ambition is to become the reference in his particular field. The first product, The LABB, therefore lays the groundwork and defines references for future versions.
The LABB, an acronym for The Loopless and Buckless Band, an innovative Swiss made material with many advantageous properties - supple, silky feel, odourless, strong, waterproof and fully inert - is set to revolutionize the world of watch straps. No buckle, no loops but a strong and easy to operate clasp: a tailor-made name for this technical creation which unites design and function. The strap sections adhere over the entire superimposed surface and the tip cannot move. Moreover since adhesion is obtained by a large number of distributed elements, the traction efforts are spread between all the elements to achieve the highest possible strength.
The LABB has been created in partnership with Benjamin Hubert, an English designer. This artist has achieved a fusion of form and function in a strap with a complex and innovative pattern whose details are practically invisible to the naked eye.
Alain Dubois has invested nearly a million francs in this new venture which will enable the group to achieve a high profile on the market for ingenious wristlets and take up a position as a B2C brand, so making its activity and its member companies widely known.
With the target of selling at least 25,000 pieces in 2017, including a large proportion on the US market, Alain Dubois hopes to be able to rapidly develop his product range and adapt it to his clients’ specific needs.
The Brasport group consist today of sales offices, production centres, more than one thousand employees and five proprietary brands: Brasport, Noomoon, Noleti, A2i and DLC. Brasport is a watch strap manufacturing company created in 1946; Noleti makes bags and small Swiss leather articles, A2i is the Research and Development Centre while DLC is Brasport’s second production site in China.
November 10, 2016