The indies dialling up the playfulness to woo watch collectors

Independent watchmakers are increasingly focusing their efforts on producing eye-catching dials that poke fun at tradition, in an attempt to lure buyers away from the strait-laced big brands of horology.

Dial designs can include anything from psychedelic patterns to monster faces, pizzas, or watermelons. And, for some, the revolution is more than dial-deep: it signals an entirely novel approach for a fresh audience of watch enthusiasts.

“There is a very clear desire for novelty, true novelty, and not just the major mainstream brands’ practice of creating a story out of nothing, such as a new dial colour,” says Rob Nudds, a watchmaker and marketing director at pan-Scandinavian brand Arcanaut. “Collectors are jaded with the conservatism of the mainstream, and want something fresh. If the Swiss made all the shoes, we would all be wearing just three types of shoe and they would all be brown.”

If the Swiss made all the shoes, we would all be wearing just three types of shoe and they would all be brown

The boom in indie brands is, in part, a result of the lockdowns that came with the coronavirus pandemic. “The world tuned into watches during the pandemic,” says Andrew McUtchen founder of digital platform Time+Tide. “The Moon Swatch launched in March 2022, sold 1mn pieces, and created a new generation of collectors at a lower price point. This gave us an enormous boost, as the Moon Swatch started an addiction and wearers began seeking out other cool brands for their collections.”

What these new brands have in common is often an outsider’s approach. Along with Nudds, the team at Arcanaut includes Anders Brandt, formerly a product development consultant, who designed the case, and James Thompson, the house’s “material alchemist”, who creates mind-boggling material combinations. According to Nudds, this allows them to “do all kinds of crazy things you haven’t seen in watches — things often blow up, but we remain truly experimental”.

Arcanaut’s experiments include dials made of Fordite, also known as Detroit Opal or Motorcity Agate, a material created from dried layers of car paint scraped from the floor of a Ford Detroit factory, where it formed what the brand calls “groovy” colour ripples. The latest Bonehead models have dials made from aerospace-grade aluminium foam, injected with clear resin, placed on top of a disc of solid blue lume to create an eerie bubble-effect coloured glow. The limited edition of 30 pieces sold out at launch. Nor is it just design that Arcanaut is revolutionising; it is also sourcing. The company found a hearing aid manufacturer in Copenhagen to make its watch cases for a third of the price of the Swiss option.

Crispin Jones, a fine art student and sculptor who founded Mr Jones Watches in London in 2007, also wanted to create watches with a dial that told a story and showed the time in novel ways. He launched his first timepiece that year, aimed at his peers.

Jones pursues a philosophy of playful subversion exemplified in A Perfectly Useless Afternoon. This bestselling model features a man floating on an inflatable ring in a swimming pool, with one foot acting as the hour hand and a rubber duck reading off the minutes. The brand often works in collaboration with artists and, like limited art editions, its pieces are issued in small numbers. If they sell out, further series follow in a system that Jones describes as “product Darwinism”.

The increasing number of indie brands is evident in a swath of watch shows, such as the Windup fair that took place in New York this October. It increased its exhibition space to host 145 brands, up from 85 the previous year, at a time when traditional watch brands are facing difficult trading conditions.

In London, the WatchPro Salon has been running for four years and, earlier this month, offered a showcase for around 50 brands. Many exhibitors were newcomers to the world of horology, including Detrash, founded in 2023 by Guy Blaskey, a former pet food entrepreneur. His aim was to create a totally sustainable watch with recycled steel cases and an ocean plastic straps.

“You never actually own the planet; you merely look after it for the next generation” is the brand’s cheeky strap line, riffing on Patek Philippe’s Generations ad campaign. The dial of the chunky Detrash Player One is decorated with computer game motifs and was one of GQ magazine’s 2024 Watch of the Year choices.

Also present at the WatchPro Salon was Wilbur Watch Co, founded in 2020 by Jason Wilbur, a former car designer in the US. He describes his concept as: “Supermachines — futuristic timepieces engineered with the precision of hypercars and the daring spirit of spacecraft. Every watch fuses cutting-edge technology with bold designs, embodying a relentless drive to push boundaries. Wilbur isn’t about telling time; it’s about redefining what’s possible in luxury horology.”

Dennison, a brand name dating back to the 19th century, was relaunched a matter of days before the salon. It offers 1970s-style groovy stone dials in malachite, tigers eye and lapis lazuli at just over £500, a fraction of the price of its high-end competitors.

And, where watches go, the accessories follow. Chrome Calibre’s Retro-Bot watch winder was first conceived in Dublin in 2021 and takes the form of a friendly robot whose stomach winds your timepiece.

What started as an indie, disruptive movement has sent ripples through the highest echelons of Swiss watchmaking. The launch of Rolex’s Bubble watch in 2020 confirmed that alternative dials were more than a passing trend. Biver has since commissioned the Swiss artist Guillaume Ehinger to paint a dial marking its first-ever artist collaboration.

Then, this month, Hublot teamed up with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami to create a hippy-dippy dial of a smiling flower studded in a rainbow array of gems. Konstantin Chaykin, the Russian premier brand known for its classical watches, also sought to unite art and watchmaking in 2017, when it unveiled the kooky Wristmon, or “wrist monster”. The wacky and comical Joker is the bestselling model, with spinning luminous eyeballs that tell the time and a lurid red tongue for the moon phase.

Distribution has been altered, too. The majority of niche brands sell directly to consumers via their websites, creating tribal followings that have been key to their success. Young, internet sales-based brands place great importance on connecting with their clients at events, as well, and actively encourage a cult of collectors’ clubs.

“The traditional difficulty of brands finding retailers pivoted into an advantage during Covid-19, as young brands are good at social media and online sales,” says Alistair Audsley, chief executive of trade body the Alliance of British Watch and Clock Makers. During the pandemic, “they found they had a global audience interested in watches with time on its hands that was interested in investigating and discovering new brands”.

Time+Tide now offers independent brands a retail space with its Watch Discovery Studio concept. Following the opening of its Melbourne flagship, it has launched a second shop in London. The Australian platform is a hybrid of media and retail for independent brands. “Collector addiction is taking the lower end of the market by storm,” says founder McUtchen. “We stock brands that don’t have a retail presence. Clients feel they have hacked the watch industry, getting a better price and the same quality of big-box brands with personality-rich watches.”