SpaceOne, Toledano & Chan, Anoma – are the hype microbrands worth it?

Zach Blass

Blake Buettner, formerly of Hodinkee, StockX, and Worn & Wound, joins Andrew to discuss the current trends in watch design. Recently, we have seen brands shift towards experimentation, originality, and pushing boundaries in watchmaking. In particular, microbrands are excelling in this department, and as a result generating a lot of buzz. The questions raised: are the hype microbrands worth it? Are microbrands the driving force behind this push towards more experimentative and edgy watch design? You’ll have to watch the video below to see where Andrew and Blake land.

Personally, I think the answer is that it’s a circular feedback loop in which all sides and scales of brands are informing each other in their friendly competition for watch consumer dollars. Microbrands certainly have an incentive to push the boundaries of their designs as these lesser-known watchmakers require products that stand out to capture the attention of watch buyers – along with establishing brand signatures of distinction. As hype surrounds these microbrands with their edgier designs, it then signals to more established brands that watch consumers are open to experimentation rather than simply the safe bet of recolouring existing safe designs.

I would also argue that credit should be awarded to a brand like Cartier, which in its rapid rise in interest, signaled that watch consumers were ready to pivot a bit more away from the saturated sports watch category and are now also interested in more aesthetic-driven offerings that play with case form and colour while being bulletproof in their leverage of timeless frameworks.

You also have higher-end independents like De Bethune promoting more atypical watch designs. But since its products are so high-end and in turn command high prices, it creates a gap for brands like SpaceOne to present a more affordable twist on such a thematic case design.

It’s not such a straight line to say that microbrands are promoting edgier design and bigger brands are following their lead. For example, the Rolex King Midas surges in status, and Phil Toledano, a known collector of various King Midas and Cellini watches from Rolex, presents a more affordable and brutalist twist of this form: the Toledano & Chan B/1. In fairness, the watch has a clear source of distinct inspiration by a brutalist museum building’s window, with the King Midas perhaps a more subtle inspiration. Shortly after, Audemars Piguet unveiled its own [Re]Master 02 Selfwinding that revives a brutalist design from Audemars Piguet’s catalogue. Some jested that AP had copied Toledano & Chan, but of course, such a claim is erroneous as both watches took years to develop – it just so happened the B1 came to market first. The safer claim is that collectively, with both microbrands and big brands now clearly attuned to the demand for more edgy shapes and watch designs, each side of the spectrum is racing to present an offering of its own.

It is my observation that microbrands are perhaps looking to more deep-cut corners of bigger brands’ catalogues for inspiration, and whether coincidental or correlated, more prominent brands are beginning to feel more confident in reviving, for lack of a better phrase, their groovier designs. Certainly, the rise in favour for vintage Cartier and Piaget has made it apparent that Art Deco and the ’70s are in – offering the greatest opportunity for hot revivals or for microbrand homages with a twist.

Who gets credit for being the driving force of edgier watch design in today’s marketplace? There’s not one crystal clear answer, but this is why we would love for you all to weigh in with your thoughts in the comments section of the video above. Regardless of who is the chicken or the egg, I’m thankful that brands of all scales are making an effort to push more original and edgy designs to a market that appears to be more receptive to such a trend. Considering the emphasis on unobtanium sports watches going on far too long, this is great news.