I finally found a third party "leather" band I liked. I'm using this Mifa black leather buckle from
Amazon combined with these
Clockwork Synergy space grey adapters.
My opinion? It's nice, soft, a little thin, but comfy. The buckle is a tad annoying because it will scrape against a desk or a MacBook chassis as you type, but this is an issue with any buckle band. I will still use my Black Sport band most of the time, but now have this for dresser occasions, not so much desk work. The band is about 1-1.5mm too narrow for the Clockwork Synergy adapter which I thought meant the watch would slide, but after a good amount of use I've never noticed that at al, but you could wedge something in it if it really bugged you.
I'm happy with it for $24 +$15 adapters. It's not a nice as Apple's of course, but works.