Okay hear me out. Christopher Ward is here to stay. They are no more that interesting British micro brand with horrible name and logo. They are a great independent watchmaker that puts out extremely interesting designs at very competitive price points. The strategy of modifying Sellita movements and not having a distribution network is paying off big time. They are way more agile than any of the big watchmakers out there. They introduce unique and interesting watches at such a rapid speed. They take no hostages.
Whereas big watchmakers take around 12-24 months to release different size variations of their popular models, CW does it in just mere months (look at Longines Spirit vs. CW Twelve). CW doesn’t YET have the brand reputation but also not the baggage to stay in certain dedicated niche. They are free to experiment on whatever they want.
Within last 12 months or so CW has released: Bell canto, Bell canto’s new colors, Twelve in 40mm , Twelve in 37mm, Twelve Halo, new C63 Sealander and Sealander GMT colors, and now this C1 Moonphase! They’ve ventured into totally new movements, into different materials in titanium, aventurine and rose gold, they’ve taken really bold design choices by taking out indeces, by taking out the logo, by blastering the whole dial with textured logo pattern… IT’S WILD AND I’M LOVING IT!!!
They earned my respect. They haven’t yet earned my money as nowadays I’m super selective with my watch purchases and I avoid impulse purchases by all costs, and they simply haven’t released anything that is 100% up my alley. I have no issues with their logo, their resale practice, their designs, their prices, or anything tbh. I’m sure they’ll only keep growing from here.
I do think as of now they should slow down a bit with these kind of releases to not dilute their lineup of watches. They should keep it special, otherwise the hype of their new watches will wear off rather quickly and people get tired of them in no time.
I can see that as a risk for sure. They’ve done the releases quite intelligently by pacing them so that the same target audience don’t get releases back to back. Meaning that I assume Bel Canto and C1 Moon phase are for people into watchmaking and complications whereas Twelve is more for sports watch fans. Twelve Halo is for people with minimalistic taste, etc. Of course there’s a lot of overlap among those audiences.
![[Christopher Ward] New C1 moonphase](https://alien.top/pictrs/image/fc4343bc-ecfa-4d11-916a-ca66757e6409.webp){kind=link}
Okay hear me out. Christopher Ward is here to stay. They are no more that interesting British micro brand with horrible name and logo. They are a great independent watchmaker that puts out extremely interesting designs at very competitive price points. The strategy of modifying Sellita movements and not having a distribution network is paying off big time. They are way more agile than any of the big watchmakers out there. They introduce unique and interesting watches at such a rapid speed. They take no hostages.
Whereas big watchmakers take around 12-24 months to release different size variations of their popular models, CW does it in just mere months (look at Longines Spirit vs. CW Twelve). CW doesn’t YET have the brand reputation but also not the baggage to stay in certain dedicated niche. They are free to experiment on whatever they want.
Within last 12 months or so CW has released: Bell canto, Bell canto’s new colors, Twelve in 40mm , Twelve in 37mm, Twelve Halo, new C63 Sealander and Sealander GMT colors, and now this C1 Moonphase! They’ve ventured into totally new movements, into different materials in titanium, aventurine and rose gold, they’ve taken really bold design choices by taking out indeces, by taking out the logo, by blastering the whole dial with textured logo pattern… IT’S WILD AND I’M LOVING IT!!!
They earned my respect. They haven’t yet earned my money as nowadays I’m super selective with my watch purchases and I avoid impulse purchases by all costs, and they simply haven’t released anything that is 100% up my alley. I have no issues with their logo, their resale practice, their designs, their prices, or anything tbh. I’m sure they’ll only keep growing from here.
Couldn’t have been said better. And that’s why I own 3 CW now (and why I’m extremely biased)
I do think as of now they should slow down a bit with these kind of releases to not dilute their lineup of watches. They should keep it special, otherwise the hype of their new watches will wear off rather quickly and people get tired of them in no time.
I can see that as a risk for sure. They’ve done the releases quite intelligently by pacing them so that the same target audience don’t get releases back to back. Meaning that I assume Bel Canto and C1 Moon phase are for people into watchmaking and complications whereas Twelve is more for sports watch fans. Twelve Halo is for people with minimalistic taste, etc. Of course there’s a lot of overlap among those audiences.