Our Story
I founded Alton in 2017 to bring Scandinavian design philosophy to bracelets. By stripping away the clutter it would give fine materials and the craftsmanship behind it the attention it deserves.
The interest in the pieces started growing, and I brought in my brother Hannes to help with the business. For a few years it was just the two of us. The craftsmanship was good, but we needed it to be exceptional. While Hannes kept working from Sweden, I moved to Italy to find the artisans who could help us get there.
The search led me to Arezzo, the Tuscan city known as the City of Gold, where goldsmithing dates back over 2000 years. Today the workshops there make pieces for some of the most renowned luxury brands in the world. They helped teach me the little Italian I speak, but more importantly, the skill and care needed to create something great by hand. After 18 months of refining, we launched our Swedish-designed, Italian-made bracelets.
While a lot has happened since, we are still working with the same artisans. The standard we set for our first bracelet is the one we've held for every piece since.
I hope you enjoy our bracelets,
William, founder of Alton
Sustainability, in practice
A bracelet is not a necessity, and we won't dress it up as one. Sustainability is easy to claim and harder to show. We make things to be kept, and we care about how every part of the process is done. Let us describe what that looks like in practice below.
Materials
Everything starts with the materials. Our bracelets are made from leather, stone, steel and nylon. The leather comes from high-welfare farms in Europe and Australia, and is turned from raw hide to finished bracelet in Italy. Our selection of stone and steel is all about aging gracefully. Materials that resist scratches, hold their color and stand up to daily wear for years. The cord in our nylon pieces comes from 100% recycled fibers, giving the material a second, longer life.
People
Our makers are highly skilled artisans and are compensated accordingly. They work under Italy’s National Collective Labor Agreements (CCNL Artigianato), that sets union-negotiated wage levels, regulates working hours, and provides welfare protections. We work with family owned workshops as well, in long-term partnerships, at prices that reflect the true cost of doing things properly.
All bracelets are made in Arezzo, Italy. Rather than mass-manufacture, our pieces are made at a small scale with proven traditional methods. The timeline is set by our artisans, not demand. It takes longer. It costs us more. But time spent on the details is what makes a bracelet last.
We don't follow fashion seasons. We don't release new collections to give you a reason to replace what you already own. Instead, we keep a small, permanent collection. Every bracelet we make stays. When we design something new, it's because we believe it deserves a permanent place in our collection. The result is fewer products, refined over years instead of replaced every few months.
Every choice above serves the same outcome. We are building Alton to last for generations, and that long horizon clarifies our decisions. Responsibly sourced raw materials, well-compensated artisans, timelines dictated by craft rather than speed all become self-evident when the work is meant to endure for decades.