Is This Normal Wear for a $100 / £100 Leather Apple Watch Band?

Last year, when I got the new Meyer Lemon Leather Loop Band for my Apple Watch, I posted a review here on this website. I liked the band, and I still do. However, today I posted an update to that article, with this photo, saying:

Yellow band with wear

I’ve had this band now for about nine months, and I don’t wear it all the time. It’s a bit problematic when you’re doing activities around water, such as cooking, where I wash my hands a lot, or even any form of exercise where you sweat. I’d say that I’ve worn it about 25% of the time in this period, because I have other bands and I like to switch, so the current condition is the equivalent of wearing it for a few months full time.

For $100 / £100, the wear this band shows after this amount of time is quite unacceptable. They way the yellow has worn off on the edges especially around the fold is disturbing, and, while other colors might not show the wear in the same way, on this band it looks unsightly. To be fair, the worn parts are on the underside of my wrist, but every time I put it on, I’m disappointed by the quality. I’ll contact Apple and see what they say.

I tweeted about this, mentioning @AppleSupport, and was a bit surprised by their reply:

I don’t know, it seems to me that this much wear after what was no more than a few months use is a bit excessive, even surprising, but I guess they don’t feel the same way. I wouldn’t buy a leather Apple Watch band again from Apple. If the company doesn’t think they’re supposed to last, then you’re just throwing money away.