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HotPix 2010
MR's Annual look at interesting companies that might be under your radar, as published in the April 2010 issue. Click here to browse.
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This week's focus is on the innovative watch brands exhibiting at the MAGIC and Pool trade shows in Las Vegas this season. The under-$300 watch market is thriving with new designs in materials like polyurethane, plastics, ceramics and rubber. There are also a number of companies that have been experimenting with different ways of telling time. Here are a few of the most exciting watch brands we saw.
Tokyoflash
Tokyoflash is more about fashion than about telling time. The designers for this 9-year-old company take an idea for a new way to represent the hours and minutes of a day and then create a watch around it. Like watches from another innovative brand, Nooka, it isn’t always easy to glance at a Tokyoflash watch and tell the time—sometimes you have to press a couple of buttons. But these watches are more than mere chronographs.
The R75 (pictured above; retail: $230) can display the time three different ways: in a minute-centric way, with the minutes appearing on the bottom and the hours counted in dots on the top; in an hour-centric way with the hour shown large digitally on the bottom and the minutes counted on the top dots; and finally, in binary, which is really difficult to read.
The Rogue (above; retail: $170) uses three rings to tell time. The large one represents hours, the inner one five-minutes increments and the small outer ring single minutes.
Tokyoflash is exhibiting at Pool. www.tokyoflash.com
Alessi
Alessi watches, which are distributed in the U.S. by Seiko Instruments USA Inc. of Austin, Texas, are some of the most consistently well-styled affordable watches on the market. The Italian firm often commissions famous designers and architects to create their watches.
The Kaj watch (above; retail: $85), by industrial designer Karim Rashid, has been around for a few years. It comes in at least seven colors. It’s made out of polyurethane with an acrylic crystal.
The Daytimer (retail: $120) was designed by British architect Will Alsop. It’s a big watch; it sticks out quite a bit with its off-kilter trapezoidal face. The polyurethane design comes in at least four colors—green, orange, violet and black—and debuted in July this year.
Alessi exhibits at Pool. alessiwatches.com
Wize & Ope
Paris-based Wize & Ope started about two years ago. The interchangeable watches sell for between $69 and $99, with customizable straps and slides selling for $10 to $20. They come in both digital and analog versions.
Wize & Ope exhibits at Pool. wizeandope.com
Flüd
Flüd, which sells almost all of its watches for less than $100 retail, was launched in 2007.
The Negative Space watch (retail: $85) comes in black or white and features a lightweight glossy plastic band.
The company also makes a watch shaped like a tiny turntable, complete with tone arm, with the face as the platter. It comes in a limited edition version for $200 and regular versions for $70 to $80 retail.
Flüd exhibits in the S.L.A.T.E. section at MAGIC. www.fludwatches.com
Android
Android (along with Alessi) is one of the more established brands that I looked at. The company was founded 17 years ago in Florida by designer Wing Liang. The collection, which is quite large, features a wide variety of traditional and not-so-traditional styles.
The rubber-banded model pictured here (retail: $125) comes in six colors.
Android exhibits in the Premium section at MAGIC. www.android-usa.com
Each week, MR’s editors will comment on a product we’ve seen in the market. It could be an emerging trend, a novel take on a classic or something that just caught our eyes.
Previous Items of the Week:
Dion Ties to Fight Prostate Cancer
PF Flyers classic baseball shoes
The New Eisenhower Jacket by Carlos Campos
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