{"id":724074,"date":"2026-08-02T07:51:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T07:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/724074\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T07:51:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T07:51:25","slug":"8-independent-watchmakers-you-need-to-know-according-to-an-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/724074\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Independent Watchmakers You Need to Know, According to an Expert"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have noticed a shift on the red carpet recently. Some of the most stylish male celebrities have traded timepieces from the big brands for models that take a keen eye\u2014and maybe a little Googling\u2014to identify. We\u2019re talking about Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet stepping out with an Urban J\u00fcrgensen<\/a>, Ed Sheeran wearing a design<\/a> from Vanguart, and noted watch hound John Mayer rocking F.P. Journe on the regular.<\/a> That\u2019s not to say that the juggernauts are losing a step\u2014just that it\u2019s a very good time, if you haven\u2019t already, to set your sights on the independent watchmakers turning \u201cif you know, you know\u201d wristwear into a bona fide horological flex.<\/p>\n

But even if you\u2019ve been a certified Watch Guy for years, delving into the indie world can be a little intimidating. There are so many names and so many new and exciting concepts to wrap your head around that it might feel overwhelming. It\u2019s a good idea, then, to consult with an expert. Which is exactly what I did.<\/p>\n

Asher Rapkin is the CEO of Collective Horology<\/a>, a retailer specialising in independent watchmakers that he cofounded with longtime friend and fellow watch nut Gabe Reilly in 2018. The company currently carries 20 brands, ranging from some of the better-known indies to makers that even dedicated collectors may not have heard of.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to bring in people that we believe have a really strong creative point of view,\u201d he explains over a video call from his California office. \u201cWe ask anybody that we work with, Why does this watch need to exist? Which is a question that not everybody has a clear answer to. The ones that do are the ones that we get most excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked Rapkin a different question: If you had to give a crash course on independent watchmaking to a relative newbie who\u2019s looking to get into the game, which brands would you recommend, and what specific watches would you tell them to keep on their radar? It\u2019s a pretty big request. Luckily, he was only too happy to oblige. Here\u2019s what you need to know.<\/p>\n

Ming\"A<\/p>\n

Ming<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Ming is a great entry point for a lot of independent collectors because they operate at different price points, but their design language is present across all of them,\u201d Rapkin explains. The idea, at its core, is marrying classical watchmaking with 21st-century design, something that\u2019s been at the forefront since Ming Tian started the brand.<\/p>\n

Rapkin points to the 37.02 Minimalist<\/a> as a standout.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a $5,000 (approx \u00a33.7k), time-only, 100-meter-water-resistant stainless-steel watch. So it checks every box as a daily wear, but it has their core design language, and it has their white polar lume, which is something nobody else currently offers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He notes that it runs on a 300 series Sellita movement, which some fans of in-house calibers might find vexing, but it\u2019s been upgraded with rhodium plating and skeletonised, \u201cso it\u2019s completely unique to them.\u201d Overall, he says, it\u2019s \u201cnot cheap, per se, but a lot of really interesting creative watchmaking for $5,000 and something you can wear at any time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dominique Renaud\"Luxury<\/p>\n

Dominique Renaud<\/p>\n

\u201cDominique Renaud<\/a> is very famous because he founded a company called Renaud & Papi in 1986,\u201d says Rapkin. That venture was so successful that it was acquired by Audemars Piguet. Now Renaud is back at it on his own. \u201cDominique himself is primarily an engineer, and he likes to create incredibly difficult, complex movements that tend to solve horological problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Case in point: the Pulse 60<\/a>, which functions at one hertz\u2014the lowest frequency used in contemporary mechanical watchmaking. That means the balance wheel oscillates just 60 times per minute. There\u2019s a practical component: The lower frequency means fewer shocks and impulses can disrupt the balance wheel. But there\u2019s also an emotional element: The watch beats at about the same rate as a resting human heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s a very dramatic watch,\u201d Rapkin continues. \u201cAnd they did this in a watch that isn\u2019t a dress watch, isn\u2019t a sports watch. It\u2019s its own very modernist thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niton\"Luxury<\/p>\n

Collective Horology<\/p>\n

\u201cNiton is a resurrection of a brand that was fairly popular around the turn of the last century, so early 1900s,\u201d Rapkin says. \u201cIt came back about a year ago with the Prima<\/a>, which references the original Niton jump hour and is available in either platinum or rose gold.\u201d Unlike a traditional three-hand watch, this watch has you read the hours in the top window, the minutes on a rotating disc below, and the seconds on a small sub-dial under that.<\/p>\n

Rapkin also points out the \u201chighly reductive\u201d movement visible through the case back. It might not look like much at first\u2014the intricacies are hidden beneath rhodium bridges\u2014but is remarkable in its own right.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight over here,\u201d Rapkin says, indicating the bottom right corner with his cursor, \u201cyou have something that you don\u2019t generally see on independent watches: the Geneva Seal. What it means is you have to meet very, very high standards that a third party audits. The watch\u2019s finishing exceeds the vast majority of what you\u2019d find on basically anything other than a Vacheron or a Patek.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrelhand\"barrelhand<\/p>\n

Barrelhand<\/p>\n

\u201cBarrelhand is owned by a guy named Karel Bachand. When his hair is grown out, he kind of looks like a thin version of the Dude from The Big Lebowski,\u201d says Rapkin. \u201cHe\u2019s got a vibe, but he\u2019s an aerospace engineer and he designed this watch, the Monolith<\/a>, for space travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

It uses a modified Sellita movement that\u2019s designed to withstand the intense temperature swings you might encounter on a space walk. And it has a distinct advantage over a quartz movement, which uses circuitry and batteries that can\u2019t be repaired as easily as the Monolith\u2019s mechanical movement.<\/p>\n

The Monolith, after all, is a study in durability and longevity. \u201cThe alloy, Scalmalloy, is unique to aerospace engineering and has never been used in watchmaking,\u201d Rapkin says. \u201cIt\u2019s very strong and lightweight without being at risk to the elements. The second is the nano-engraved Memory Disc, which has about a thousand pages of information encoded on the case back. So if every system went to hell in space, you\u2019d have a data archive on your wrist.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s exactly the sort of disaster-proof design you\u2019d expect from a designer who used to work at NASA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just marketing; it\u2019s legit design. It\u2019s really cool stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holthinrichs\"Luxury<\/p>\n

Holthinrichs<\/p>\n

\u201cHolthinrichs is founded by Michiel Holthinrichs, a Dutch guy who was an architect and then decided to become a watchmaker,\u201d says Rapkin. \u201cHe became very famous for his use of 3D printing in cases, which you can see on the insanely dramatic lugs on watches like the Lab Series 1.S<\/a> or the Lab Series 1.GMT<\/a>. Those lugs could only be achieved with 3D printing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holthinrichs references different elements and different eras of Dutch architecture, but one thing that\u2019s impossible to miss is the influence of art nouveau.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see it in the waves, the curves\u2014it\u2019s fascinating to see Dutch architecture come to life in this particular way,\u201d Rapkin says.<\/p>\n

Those same aesthetic cues play out, albeit a little less dramatically, in pieces like the Signature Ornament<\/a>, a stock offering that\u2019s less expensive because it can use more traditional machining techniques. Regardless of what tier you opt for, though, Rapkin believes there\u2019s something special happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are really awesome, very unusual, very creative pieces,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Berneron\"Luxury<\/p>\n

Berneron<\/p>\n

\u201cSylvain Berneron, the guy behind this brand, is a really interesting young man,\u201d says Rapkin. \u201cHe\u2019s French, he\u2019s in his mid-30s, and he gave up a lucrative job as the chief creative officer at Breitling to start his own company. He\u2019s most famous for the Mirage<\/a>, which is what he first launched. The thing that was so cool about the Mirage, aside from just the overall aesthetic on it, is the movement in it, which is designed completely to fit the shape of that watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Rapkin has another pick he thinks folks should pay attention to from Berneron: the Quanti\u00e8me Annuel<\/a>, an annual calendar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a number of things that are hidden in plain sight and are really cool. One of them is the retrograde date wheel. You see that sometimes in other brands, but the higher numbers are all jammed together. That design drove Sylvain crazy because there\u2019s no symmetry to it, so he sorted it out. It takes a lot of engineering and a lot of power, and Berneron managed that in a 38mm watch,\u201d he says, \u201cIt\u2019s about $160,000 (approx \u00a3118k), but it\u2019s really a good example of what true high-end engineering can achieve at that rate.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Candaux\"A<\/p>\n

David Candaux<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid is in his early 40s, but he\u2019s been at it since he was an apprentice at Jaeger-LeCoultre,\u201d Rapkin says. \u201cHe\u2019s very famous for making tourbillons, but the watch I want to talk about\u2014the DC12<\/a>\u2014is his only one that\u2019s not a tourbillon. It\u2019s a wild watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest thing, he explains, is a movement that uses two balance wheels. Without getting too deep in the weeds, the dual balance wheels basically feed into a differential that averages out the power and feeds it into the gear train. But that\u2019s not the only technical innovation at play here.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a telescoping \u201cmagic crown,\u201d a David Candaux innovation. \u201cWhen you tap it, it pops out,\u201d Rapkin explains. \u201cYou move it into one position to set and another position to wind it. And when you are done, you depress it all the way back in, making it the only watch you can set on your wrist without bending the winding stem. And not that I would advocate that you should swim with a $125,000 (approx \u00a392k) watch, but you can with the crown out because it is waterproof in all positions, which is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singer Reimagined\"Stylish<\/p>\n

Singer Reimagined<\/p>\n

\u201cSinger Reimagined is very famous for its chronographs like the Track1,\u201d says Rapkin. \u201cThe grand innovation of the Track1<\/a> was a realisation by a guy named Marco Borraccino, who\u2019s the CEO and the designer. He was the head of design at Panerai for ten years during the big Paneristi phase, about 20 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Borraccino\u2019s big idea was to essentially invert the design of the chronograph, putting the stopwatch function front and center while maintaining an easy, legible way to tell the time of day.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what you\u2019re looking at here,\u201d Rapkin says, pointing to the edge of the Track1\u2019s case, \u201cis these two outer discs. They tell you the time. And then you have a centre-mounted chronograph which is tracking running seconds, minutes, and hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Rapkin\u2019s personal pick from Singer Reimagined is a different complication altogether: a GMT.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe watch I want to show you is this one, which I loved so much I bought for myself: the Singer DualTrack<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The model uses a peripheral disc to show a second time zone, with a pusher on the side to advance hour by hour and a four-barrel movement for consistent power and accuracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hand wound, but it\u2019s a six-day power reserve,\u201d he says. \u201cSo as long as you give it a couple of twists every day, it\u2019s never going to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n