DWISS: Swiss watches in modern form

The last hours of the DWISS kickstarter are upon us, and now’s your chance if you don’t want to miss out. DWISS, founded by former designer for a number of Swiss brands you would recognize, is making a limited run of 100 watches. How do you make a run of 100 watches? By choosing the most interesting movement you could choose, and going for it.

This limited run of 100 pieces uses the Peseux 7001 handwound movement. The advantage of the handwound movement is that it is thinner, which means the whole watch can be thinner. The beauty of a thin watch is that it’s comfortable on the wrist, lighter weight, and overall just more pleasing. If you’re like Patrick Kansa, and wear a proper shirt and tie every day, the watch will clear your shirtsleeves cuff, the mark of a well-dressed gentleman. The other benefit of a handwound movement is that you get 42 hours of power reserve.

The watch itself is a 40mm wide case coming in at 8mm thin. The case has wide lugs, and a bezel secured with 4 hexagonal screws. You wouldn’t be wrong for recognizing the screws as similar to an Audemars Piguet, but beyond that and the bracelet links, there’s very little here that feels like an homage – it’s an entirely different direction. The case is capped with a round bezel, the lugs are wide, the bracelet has endlinks rather than being integrated into the case. It’s stainless steel, with a sapphire crystal to view the dial. There’s a sub seconds at the six position, water resistant to 100 meters.

There are but two choices to make here: Do you want steel or PVD black steel? Choose carefully, because that choice also sets up which dial and handset you get. The steel case gets a white dial with roman numerals and pencil hands. The PVD black case calls for a black dial with a bit of orange accent, a 12 numeral at the top of the dial with stick indices the rest of the way around. The hands are much larger and are filled in with black lume instead of white lume. You can have it on the bracelet, or on fine Italian leather.

Should you want to get in on this, act quickly. The kickstarter is closing soon. The DWISS R1 limited edition is available for about $450 USD.

Watch Overview

Brand & Model: DWISS R1 Make 100
Price: Earlybird pricing starts at $448 USD

Who we think it might be for: You like a well-made watch with a bit of AP influence, but not at all an homage. Something no one has seen before.
Would I buy one for myself based on what I’ve seen?: There’s a lot to like here.
If I could make one design suggestion, it would be: I might have wanted slimmer lugs.