An inch wide leather collar is certainly sturdy enough for an every day collar, perhaps just keep it one hole bigger than normal. To small to easily slip over the head, but big enough that it moves around. I think Erin has a few hemp ones that her dogs wear loose like that.
My point was only that the people selling "tag collars" specifically state that they are not to be used for leash collars because they aren't sturdy enough for that use. This is a quote from a site that sells tag collars:
Tag collars are made to be very light weight. They are meant only to hold tags, not to restrain your dog or to walk your dog on lead etc. The tags should be attached to the collar on the slide that adjusts the collar.
Personally, we always have collars on our dogs. Having two on crate and rotate necessitates that because if we ever make a mistake, or one of them decides to break out of his crate, we
must be able to control the situation as quickly as possible. If you are a one pet house, obviously you don't have that issue, but not having a way to control my dog if necessary scares me.
It's funny about removing collars. When I take them off of our dogs they get SUPER excited because I'm sure they are itchy under there. So we give them some good scratches, but then when I hold the collar out all of them stick their neck in like "yup, this is mine." I'm sure it helps that all of our collars are fancy-dancy ones, so they
know they look goooooood.