Zach Kazan

Anyone else have a watch that you look forward to seeing on the wrist of someone else? I think if you’ve been part of this community long enough, it’s almost a certainty. Invariably a friend or colleague will own something that you genuinely look forward to seeing – that watch you hope they will decide to bring to the regular meetup that always impresses. A watch that easily slides into that somewhat niche category for me is the Fears Garrick, a limited edition collaborative effort between the two British brands that first appeared in 2022. Asher Rapkin, a co-founder of Collective, is one of the lucky owners of this watch, and whenever I run into him, be it in Switzerland for a trade show or one of our Windup Watch Fairs, I always hope he’ll have picked this watch out of the box today. It’s just such a cool concept, and a watch that’s genuinely pretty rare, so an opportunity to see it in person is kind of a special thing.

One of the most interesting new watches (and new brands) to surface at Geneva Watch Days this year was the Albishorn Maxigraph

If there’s a single area of the watch world that feels truly exciting and vibrant right now, it’s the small, approachable, independent brands. I like to call them “micro-indies,” because they take elements of what made the microbrand boom so fruitful to many (direct to consumer sales, lots of creativity) and match it up with real watchmaking craft in ways you might not expect. When I got into this hobby years ago, it was common to hear various voices on the watch forums telling you that finding “real” guilloche under five figures is straight up impossible. But new brands, and new ideas, allow for all kinds of new possibilities. Atelier Wen’s Perception integrated bracelet sports watch has become an enthusiast favorite since its inception thanks to their impressive guilloche dials made by a self-taught master of his craft, all at a cost under $4,000. Atelier Wen achieves this, in large part, by embracing Chinese manufacturing, something other brands that approach this segment run away from. But that’s the beauty of the micro-indie landscape: when you rethink how to solve common watchmaking problems, you wind up with uncommon watches that are truly unique.

If you’ve followed our recent coverage of Straum, you probably already know that they’ve been teasing a new entry in their Jan Mayen collection for some time. This weekend, at the Windup Watch Fair, the new watch from the Scandinavian brand made its public debut. The Jan Mayen Basalt Limited Edition builds on the themes the brand has been working with for a few years now with their contemporary integrated bracelet sports watch design, adding some new dial elements with this LE that change the dynamic of the watch considerably while leaning into the brand’s ethos. It’s perhaps a little more avant-garde in nature than their previous efforts, but it seems like the type of watch that Straum’s biggest fans will immediately identify with.

My Geneva Watch Days meeting with Ming Thein was easily one of my favorites of that whirlwind week. It was one of those hours where you’re presented with watch, after watch, after watch, and you kind of can’t help but get lost in all of the cool stuff you’re seeing. Ming was incredibly kind to pull out watches that have been out (and

You might be familiar with the work of Justin Walters through his work with Marin Instruments, which burst onto the microbrand watch scene back in 2021

There was a time not too long ago when the new watches that Seiko debuted this week would have broken the internet. The new SPB481, SPB483 and SPB485 are, plain and simple, some of the strangest releases we’ve seen from Seiko in quite some time. It used to be that even a middling release from the brand, particularly if it was in the sports watch category, would generate days worth of discussion and hype on Instagram, forums, and group chats where watches are discussed. But it’s been about three days since these were made public and not only are they not dominating the enthusiast conversation, they’ve been met with what I can only describe as a collective shrug.

Sooner or later, you just knew it was going to happen. For as long as there’s been a Pelagos, and as long as there’s been a Tudor GMT movement, and as long as there’s been a human impulse to speculate, there’s been a call for the Swiss brand to release a Pelagos with the ability to track multiple time zones. It just makes sense for the brand’s most tool-forward dive watch: GMTs are what the people want and it’s an undeniably useful feature. And so, like an infinite number of chimpanzees at an infinite number of typewriters are certain to eventually produce the works of Shakespeare, now Tudor has finally issued a diver with all the features their loyal fans have been asking for. Titanium case: check. GMT movement with chronometer certification: check. Rotating 24 hour bezel: check. Spring bars: hey, no one has it all.

Over the course of two years, the Bel Canto has fundamentally changed the way many watch lovers view Christopher Ward. This has been discussed in depth here

Louis Erard, in a move that I think many who follow the brand will view as somewhat surprising, announced a new watch last week along with the news that their longstanding Excellence collection, which has been the home to many of the collaborative limited editions that have propelled the brand to a new level of notoriety over the past several years, is being replaced. Those watches now fall under a new banner, the Noirmont collection. This collection, in turn, is split up into three distinct subgroups, including the standalone “Noirmont,” “Noirmont X,” which would appear to be where you’ll find Louis Erard’s collaborations going forward, and “Noirmont Métiers d’Art.” This final line is where the brand’s latest release sits, the Régulateur Gravé Noir, which sees Louis Erard applying some traditional finishing techniques and vintage inspiration to a watch that has become a signature for them. To give you a sense of the other watches in the Noirmont Métiers d’Art collection, this is where you’ll find the recent Petite Seconde guilloche pieces, as well as their