Micro-Brand Digest: Italian Divers, Canadian GMTs, and More!

Welcome to the Worn & Wound Micro-Brand Digest, a semi-monthly roundup of all the new micro-brand news we’re following, from concepts that show promise, to Kickstarter launches to restocks, and everything in between. Small independents, and affordable micro-brands spurred the creation of Worn & Wound over 10 years ago, and they still drive our enthusiasm in a big way.

Here’s what’s caught our eye this month.

If you’ve come across a project you think qualifies, hit us up at [email protected] for inclusion.

Sherwood Watches

U.K. based Glynn Reynolds began his watch journey at a very young age. Like so many of us, his gateway watch brand was Casio and before long, he purchased more watches than he can remember. In the effort to find the perfect watch, and with a background in graphic design, he spent much of his time tweaking existing watches to improve their esthetics.

In 2019, Glynn started an Instagram page and his designs started garnering interest from fellow watch enthusiasts, which led him to take the plunge and start his own micro watch brand. Why Sherwood? Pretty simple, as he spent his entire life in Mansfield (Nottinghamshire) England, and the village he currently lives in is a stone’s throw away from Sherwood Forest. Incidentally, the latter happens to be the very forest that provided cover for one of history’s most famous and storied outlaws, Robin Hood.

Like Robin Hood or yore, Sherwood (the watch brand) takes most of the money that would have been taken by the rich and returns it, along with a versatile dress/dive watch. Was that metaphor a stretch? You bet it was, but the value you get from the Sherwood Commander will stretch your dollar even further. For £395, you get a 200m rated dive watch with a double-domed sapphire crystal, powered by a Miyota 9039 automatic movement.

Measurements for this inaugural piece are 40mm in diameter, 13mm thick, 48mm from lug-to-lug and it has a lug width of 20mm. It is available in sunburst green, blue, and black, and all three come on a matching stainless-steel bracelet. It even has a beautiful engraving of Major Oak, which is Britain’s largest oak tree with a canopy of 28 meters and a truck diameter of 11 meters. After a successful Kickstarter campaign in February 2023, the Commander is available now. You can find more information on their website. 

Benjamin James Watches

For 8 years, Benjamin J. Adams was the person leading the watch division of Geckota/WatchGecko. He also conceptualized and designed the FORZO sub-brand from the ground up. In late 2022, he decided to strike it out on his own and he has been taking steps towards realizing his dreams of launching an independent brand. Today, he is proud to introduce Benjamin James, a brand born through his love for classic understated style and an obsession with watch proportions.

The Scarifour is their first watch, and it has been designed with an obsessive focus on proportions and balance, effectively straddling sport, and dress. The name comes from Benjamin’s childhood home, which 5 generations of his family have lived in. The choice to use a rectangular design as their debut model was influenced by his grandfather’s love for classic rectangular watches. From an early age, this love instilled his deep appreciation for the form.

Despite its smaller size, the Scarifour provides fantastic wrist presence due to its shape and integrated bracelet design. Measuring 31mm by 40mm, it provides quite an impact, even when viewed from above. Something only a watch in this configuration could achieve. The Heraldry dial is inspired by the chevron found in the Coat of Arms of Cheltenham, where Benjamin grew up. The motif embossed into the dial adds visual depth and contrasts well with the horizontal finish on the top case.

The Scarifour comes in black, dark blue, orange, silver and purple. You also have the choice between a dual push button fold over clasp, and a hidden butterfly buckle, which will set you back and extra £15. An undecorated Swiss Sellita SW 210-B can be seen through the display case back and because it does away with any automatic winding mechanisms, this manual wind timepiece is a svelte 8.3mm thin. Pricing starts at £660 and to be added to the waitlist or to find out more, please visit their website here. 

Paradisi

In 2014, Riccardo Paradisi had a goal, and that goal was to design and manufacture a dive watch, in Italy, capable enough to handle saturation diving without the aid of a helium escape valve. If that sounds like quite a mouthful, it is also an immense handful. Now, what is saturation diving? It is deep-sea diving in which the diver’s bloodstream is saturated with helium or another suitable gas at the pressure of the surrounding water, so that the decompression time (resurfacing) afterward is independent of the duration of the dive.

How does this relate to watches? Helium is quite prevalent at depths where saturation diving takes place and can infiltrate standard dive watches. Following a dive and upon ascent, expanding helium gas can force a watch crystal clear off its case. To avoid this catastrophic incident, watch companies have created a special one-way purge valve that can release the expanding gases safely. Some you unscrew via a secondary crown prior to ascent, others are automatic and sit flush against the case.

To create a watch that can withstand these pressures and keep helium from entering at those depths requires a great understanding of materials technology. Fortunately, that is Ricardo’s forte and over the last decade he has accomplished just that. A 44mm in diameter dive watch, which is just 15.4mm thick and has a wingspan of 51mm. Of those 15.4mm, 5.5mm is the thickness of the sapphire crystal alone. It is water resistant to a whopping 1000m (though tested to 1500m), and it is perfectly suitable for saturation diving.

There is just one model, but it is available in either 904L Stainless-Steel, Grade 5 Titanium, or in DLC coated Grade 5 Titanium. Powering this watch is the ETA 2824, which has been modified to have no date, and there is a unidirectional 60-click bezel with a large luminous pip for timing. True to his vision, every single component, apart from the movement, is made in Italy involving over 20 companies. Pricing is €3200 for the steel version, €3400 for the titanium version and €3650 for the titanium/DLC version. For more information, check out their website here. 

VanBanner Watches

Proudly Canadian, VanBanner Watches is a Vancouver-based microbrand established in 2020. They are committed to the principle of “Value at its Finest”, by making timepieces that reflect their passion for the craft, their dedication to customer satisfaction, and their relentless pursuit of balance between quality and value. Their designs are wholly unique and that includes custom fonts, as well as styling. 

Their current model is the aptly named Adroit, which is an old French term that most often describes cleverness that achieves one’s purpose despite difficulties. Can you think of a more challenging time to start a watch brand than right at the beginning of a COVID related supply chain nightmare? The watch is a truly distinctive automatic GMT sports watch, unlike any other. It features a stainless steel 48-click bezel with a 24hr scale to time multiple time zones and a textured sandwich dial.  

Measurements are 40mm in diameter, 13mm thick, 46.5mm from lug-to-lug and the bracelet is 20mm at the lugs, tapering down to 18mm at the butterfly clasp. The Double-H bracelet features twin polished center links, which contrast nicely with the mostly media-blasted finish found everywhere else. The bracelet also comes with half links for proper sizing.

Powering the Adroit is the still relatively new, but tough as nails caller-style GMT Seiko NH34 movement, which you can even admire through the display case back. The latter seems to necessitate a proprietary key to unscrew, but the result is quite intriguing and it helps maintain its 100m of water-resistance. The watches are available now with either a textured black dial or with a textured gradient blue dial. Pricing is $328, and you can find more information at their website. 

Bramier Watches

Bramier was founded in 2022, with the aim of stimulating change within a timeless sector. Born to create watches for people who seek scrupulous attention to every single detail. Behind each of their collections, designed locally in every aspect by Italian designers, there is a story made of love and passion. They ensure that each timepiece can stand the test of time, through quality materials and a recognizable and distinctive design, thus conveying unique emotions in each collection.

Their newest project is the Rocks Trilayer GMT. As the name implies, it is a watch with a three-layer dial and GMT functionality, however, is so much more than just this description. Instead of a standard GMT hand, at the center of the dial is a rotating GMT disc, which points to a small inner GMT track. Outside of that track are 3D modeled indices and numerals filled with Swiss Super-LumiNova BGW9. Additional lume can be found on the painted GMT numerals and underneath the 120-click sapphire glass capped bezel.

The handset is equally distinctive, as the hour and minute hands have cut-outs, so that neither of them impede the second time zone readout. Powering this piece is the Miyota 9075, which is the movement that has lowered the barrier of entry for travel style GMT watches. That means the wearer can independently change the hour hand backwards and forwards, without affecting time keeping. The movement, as well as its custom rotor, can be admired through the screw-down display back, which affords it 200m of water-resistance.

The dimensions are 42mm in diameter and 49mm from lug-to-lug. It looks like it will be available in forest green, turquoise blue/green and blue. Early bird pricing is set at €459 To find out more or to sign up to receive a pre-order alert and find information on their upcoming Kickstarter, please visit Bramier’s website.