Wait, Vario? Aren’t they the watch strap company? Well, yeah, they are – but now they’re also dipping their toes into the world of creating a watch – the Vario Eclipse.
Not surprisingly, the watch comes with what looks to be a pretty sweet strap, one made of Harris tweed. Not only does this look pretty awesome (and gives some interesting texture to the overall design), it’s fitting with the British 60’s sort of a vibe they’re going for with the Vario Eclipse.
As this was has been getting designed, Victor and I have have had a front-row view to some of the decisions going into the watch, with Victor pulling his very-best Zen master impersonation with some of the questions going back to the brand. Frankly, it’s stuff like this that makes it fun to (a) work with these smaller brands as they ruminate about a new design and (b) have a great crew to work with here at WWR. Ok, enough back-patting – back to the watch.
Frankly, you could be quick to dismiss the Vario Eclipse as just another slim two-hander, but I think it has some qualities that make it stand out. You of course have the aforementioned strap, but you also have a tidy sunburst dial (in four colors), a sapphire crystal covering up the clean dial, and two different movement options (a Seiko VH31 and a Miyota 6T33 manually-wound mechanical).
Earlybird pricing for the Various Elipse starts at $118 for a watch with the Harris tweed strap, or $28 for a strap all by it’s lonesome. The watch itself is handsome, but for me, the strap is still the star of the show – and it elevates the watch all by it’s lonesome. Which makes me curious what a 20mm tween strap in grey or blue would look like on some of the watches I’ve got kicking around… kickstarter.com
Tech Specs from Vario
- Case diameter:38mm
- Height to apex of crystal: 10mm
- Case thickness: 7mm
- Crystal: sapphire, 3mm double dome with anti reflective coating on inner glass
- Case material: 316L stainless steelDial: slightly domed sunburst dial in silver, grey, blue and black color
- Strap: 20mm harris tweed strap
- Movement: Seiko VH31 quartz movement ¼ beat sweeping hands or Miyota 6T33 handwound movement
