Since the company’s founding in 2009, Uniform Wares has been designing minimalist watches with no logos or signatures on the dials. It sounds simple enough, but this is tantamount to heresy in the traditional world of Swiss watchmaking.
Over the half-decade since the first collection, founders Oliver Fowles and Patrick Bek have refined the designs, added and subtracted a few here and there, opened a hybrid workshop and showroom in East London, and even moved production of the watches to Switzerland. While the watches weren’t explicitly for men only, the sizes, colors, and materials did usually skew that way.
“We were approached by many women who wanted to wear our watches because they loved the androgynous, clean aesthetic, but required a smaller sizing overall,” says Fowles. “We ran with the opportunity.”
In all there are six basic models in the new collection, three from the more overtly sleek M line and three from the traditionally-inspired C line. While each model roughly corresponds to one in the original collection (not called a men’s collection until recently), the cases are one to two millimeters smaller in diameter, the straps and bracelets are proportioned differently, and the color palette centers around dusty rose tones and various subtle shades of grey. Prices range from $400 for the M35 on a calf leather strap to $1,100 for the C39 on a steel bracelet.
Uniform Wares might be marketing these watches to women, and they’ll of course look great on ladies’ wrists, there’s no reason men shouldn’t give them a look as well. In particular, the three-hand C36 is a great all-purpose watch in a medium size and you’d be forgiven for mistaking the C39 for a vintage chronograph.
The collection is available now on uniformwares.com and will go on sale in Nordstrom locations across the U.S. in May.
