25 Boutique Watch Brands You Should Know About

roadwarrior

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There are quality micro-brands out there, that deserve our attention as buyers and watch lovers.

OCTOBER 28, 2019
BUYING GUIDES
By CHRIS WRIGHT

https://gearpatrol.com/2019/10/28/25...rands-to-know/

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James Stacey, in an excellent essay published on Hodinkee in August of 2018, laid out a conundrum in the watchmaking world: watch fans want to buy “microbrand” watches, yet brands hate the moniker.

“[Microbrand] operates as a blanket term for small watch brands that operate online, which lumps quality producers in with scam artists and get-rich-quick schemes,” Stacey wrote, while at the same time, insisting that it was a useful term (legitimate enough to be found on Wikipedia) that could be applied to quality brands.

So what is a “microbrand”? We can likely agree on several parameters: It’s a brand that is independently owned, often run by a single person or a team of a few people; that produces watches in small batches, at a rate of several hundred to several thousand a year; that often outsources at least one significant part of its watches to be made elsewhere, whether in Asia or Switzerland; and that “cuts out the middleman” by selling its watches online, straight to consumers (though some will also sell in retail locations).

This definition does not exclude the ugly parts of the term: Kickstarter frauds and trend-chasers who know nothing about watchmaking can and do check those boxes, without supplying any quality to the mix. But in furtherance of Stacey’s idea—that there are quality microbrands out there, that deserve our attention as buyers and watch lovers, it’s time for a guide to the reputable microbrands, which operate worldwide and produce a vast scale of watches in different styles and price points.


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Any list can be very subjective in this field, but IMO no list should be without the three companies highlighted in red. They are a few of the Godfathers of Indie brands.

Armida, Benarus, Boschett, Borealis, Crepas, Helson, H20/Helberg, Karlskrona, Obris Morgan, Prometheus, Zoretto





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Thanks for posting this one up, Mike.:hat:
 
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