Each project for us is a dream come true, literally. We talk often of how we have changed as people in 10 years of working in the watch industry; how our ideas have changed as we’ve developed more skills and knowledge, and how our watch design DNA has changed too.
The brief for the Daytimer was simple: design a watch that we would want to wear day in, day out. A watch that fulfils the dreams of nearly a decade of persistence and determination, of growth in design and vision as to what makes a beautiful watch. An object that might find its way into the dreams of others, over generations of dreamers. The Daytimer is the distillation of what makes a Marloe watch ours.
We forget sometimes that we can design and make whatever watches we want. We are bound by no rules, no guidelines and no demands, other than those we impose upon ourselves. We create unique, meaningful watches, and we do it our way, using the Marloe Method, and nothing can hold us back.
Promotion - we're offering a complimentary additional strap with every purchase of the Watch of the Month - simply add the extra strap to your cart and head to Checkout where you can use coupon code WOTMFEB25.
February's Featured Watch of the Month, the Daytimer Tableau, is the perfect distillation of this way of thinking - inspired by Piet Mondrian’s “Tableau I,” it balances playfulness with design precision.
Piet Mondrian's Tableau I
Mondrian used bold, geometric shapes in the primary colour scheme for some of his most famous pieces - including the 'Tableau I'. These colours and grid-like structures featured heavily in early 20th century art and design, and are usually affiliated, fairly or unfairly, with the “Bauhaus” movement.
The movement’s emphasis on creating functional, mass production ready products that embraced simplicity and a 'form follows function' principle helped to shape the Daytimer. So it felt fitting to create a model that celebrates this process.
Working with Mondrian's style in mind, we paired each hand to the matching dial markings: white for hours, yellow for minutes and red for seconds - a simple but incredibly effective method of linking the whole watch face together. We set the hands over a bed of honeycomb texture for a sporty feel, and used an exhibition caseback to celebrate the incredible calibre within.
The case has a two-piece rounded profile, a reference to the pocket watches from which modern wristwatches originated, and has welded wire lugs to continue this connection. Unlike cumbersome pocket watches, the Daytimer measures a very wearable 41.1mm in diameter and a slim 10.5mm thick - like a pebble slipping under your cuff.
A funny thing happens when you first hold a manual mechanical watch. It feels solid. There are no bearing assemblies for automatic rotors to bring rattles and whirrs, just a solid block of metal and sapphire. Turning the crown, there’s an immediate sensation, through the fingertips, of mechanics in motion - the click of the clickspring and the turn of the train.
Another funny thing happens once this sensation has taken hold - you lift the watch to your ear, so that you can hear those wheels, cogs, pallet fork and balance wheel ticking, moving, turning inside.
These three senses of vision, touch and sound elicit a singular response: joy. A smile cracks across a face. Eyebrows lift in astonishment. Eyes open wide in wonder. This is a machine, and it has come to life through touch alone. It’s mesmerising, captivating and enchanting.
Achieving this reaction demands a special interaction through the crown; transferring energy from your body to the movement, aligning the hands and setting the date. If that crown is awkward or fiddly, too small, too big, misshapen or slippery, then all is lost. The smile fades. The connection is broken. The love is gone.
Just as well then that the crown on the Daytimer is the most joyous of crowns ever to have been presented for touching since the dawn of crowns. It’s a doozy! We also filled the crown end with black paint to give it a bit of flourish, so to speak.
It’s been a few months since we launched the Daytimer into the world and it’s still surprising to us, when we’ve spent a bit of time with a watch, how our view of it shifts or morphs. The Tableau felt, in the design phase, really tied to the arts and that period of time where Bauhaus was inspiring a new generation of designers.
Now, on the wrist and out in the real world, we feel it has that, but also an inherent “sportiness”, for want of a better word. The primary colours work with the honeycomb texture to feel reminiscent of part of a sporty car grille, lending an automotive vibe to a watch that was never intended to come from that place. Surprising indeed.
INSPIRATION FOR THE PACKAGING
“I love your drawings Daddy, can I do one too?”
Kind words spoken from small lips into cynical ears, from a decade spent searching for meaning; to exist in a place where dreams collide and magic is witnessed.
Looking into her face full of wonder and asking “What do you dream about?” brings a world of imagination to life. And so that’s what I did. I asked my daughter to draw what she dreamed about, what her wee mind processed from a day of learning and seeing new things for the first time.
She drew a fox looking up at the smiling sun, wondering what it was so happy about.
But then a starry night sky filled with angels, unicorns, moons, smiling faces, sausage dogs and deer. It’s within the darkness that the magic reveals itself.
To have a mind crammed so full of happiness, starlight and mythical animals epitomises the innocence of youth. It has to be embraced, protected and celebrated before it’s gone with the unrelenting, abrasive sands of time.
Our final collectors’ card is a special one to match a special watch. Cast a UV torch over the card and you too can take a moment to peer through the window of an 8-year old’s mind, and marvel at the beautiful dreamworld she finds.