Maximum for the Minimalist

MINIMALISM DONE RIGHT

If you're following watch trends lately, you're probably in one or both of these two camps:

1. You love the "Less is More" ethos of mid-century modernism.
2. You're sick & tired of the countless new watch brands passing off lack-of-design as minimalism.

Well, that's exactly how we feel and find it necessary to highlight the glory of carefully crafted timepieces with clean, simple and fresh designs that express something more than just the time. Below are some of our favorites at Watches.com

Bordering on a perfectly thin line of classic and modern, this minimal Tsovet JPT-CC38 Chrono features an array of sparsely placed thin indices and a deco font. The elegant gold & black contrasted case and leather strap make this a watch ready for just about anything you have the time for.

AÃRK Collective timepieces deliver a contemporary take on the classic wristwatch refined with a matured aesthetic and premium focus in mind.

The 4th Dimension Watch: From the delicate sculpting of the concrete watch face to the hand-shaped brass hands, from the brass crown to the leather strap, every detail of our wristwatch has been designed to show the beauty of the raw material. This unique timepiece's leather and brass become richer and darker the more the watch is worn, personalizing it and making it even more comfortable as time passes.

Concrete begins as a liquid mixture of different elements, but once it sets, it becomes as solid as stone. The simple geometric shapes of the design emphasize concrete’s strength. With concrete’s nature in mind, anticipating light chipping and evolving color as design elements that beautifully show the effects of time.

As head of design at Braun, Dieter Rams emerged as one of the most influential industrial designers of the late 20th century by defining an elegant, legible, yet rigorous visual language for its products. Featuring a full ceramic case and bracelet, this watch is a stunning physical interpretation of Braun.

The Analog Watch Co. Carpenter Watch was designed to be sleek and subtle in form. This gender-neutral piece is meant to inspire, recall, and pay homage to those experiences when we are close to nature. To retain the beauty of the all-natural wood and leather, branding is kept to an invisible minimum. The delicate watch hands glide along a truly one-of-a kind watch face.

LEFF Amsterdam Watches created the extruded ring as a starting point for the Tube Watch design. The precisely cut ring and the high-quality materials give this watch its refined, yet tough and industrial character.

The late Tibor Kalman, founder of M&Co. began his legendary relationship with time in 1983. In the spirit of the motto imprinted on the backside of the watches – “Waste Not a Moment.” Who doesn’t need to carve out a piece of time? The M&Co PIE Watch is the epitome of pure watch design.

Colour Venn dispenses with the convention of the hour minute and seconds hand, instead three color discs rotate to indicate the time. Where the discs overlap, new colors are formed in the intersection creating a constantly shifting palette of color.

Mr. Jones Watches developed Colour Venn with Mark Champkins, Inventor in Residence at the Science Museum in London.

Colour Venn uses Venn diagram style circles of color cyan, magenta and yellow films with different diameters corresponding to the second, minute and hours. As each moves round, a continuously intersecting pattern of color emerges, unique at every moment of the day".

The ODM Hacker features a deep, concave dial that rises up from the sunken center, where form-fitting graphics lead your eye inwards. Behind the capped steel disc on top of the crystal, the hands indicate the time as negative space.

Bring it. Forward in thinking but rooted in traditional style, The Nixon Porter’s bold Oxblood Red Ombre dial makes a statement without all of the excesses.

If time is relative, do you still need to be punctual? Your best friend, your rock, in this crazy, inconsistent, and yes, oftentimes not-entirely-on-time world has got to be the Nixon Time Teller SS. Bold, simple lines cut through cloudy philosophy.

The Nixon Primer Collection adds a solid coating of Cerakote™ to one of our favorite Nixon timepieces. The textured monochromatic one-ness of the uniform coating is superbly achieved. This bright silver version of the Nixon Sentry SS has that perfect secret agent skiing down the Alps kind of feel.

Kiura White Chronograph also a word that delves into the culture and language of Japan. In Japan where simplicity, harmony, ethics, and severity are the pillars of the welfare of the inner life, it is also the principle that has inspired past designers and present designers today alike to reflection and re-evaluation of the classic watch; the chronograph. Kiura White Chronograph embodies these characteristics by reducing and simplifying every aspect’ of the classic” chronograph, by returning it to the essence of its simple and pure graphics ensuring maximum efficiency and precision.

Measuring time can be utilitarian but it's also more importantly quite profound - especially in the case of this Reveal from Projects. It's displaying time in such a poetic way really, the numbers fade in and fade out for both minutes and hours allowing time to be shown in a more thoughtful way. The high contrast of the black steel casing and strap sharply highlights the subtlety of the white disc dials.

The Shinola Canfield Bolt Watch features a clean blue sunray dial has three hands, no indexes, and its namesake bolt in place of the full Shinola logo. A 43mm case surrounds an Argonite 713 quartz movement. Built in Detriot.

The strong point-of-view of this to-the-point Skagen timepiece embodies clean Danish-inspired design. Sleek and purposeful, the classic watch face pairs with a rich leather band to create a sleek look that lasts. In nature, every organism works together in beautiful simplicity, an ideal captured in this look imbued with purpose.

Founded on minimalist Danish design values, Skagen is a modern lifestyle brand grounded in simplicity, approachability, and a clean focused aesthetic. We combine timeless design principles with contemporary innovation, guided by a purposeful, new-world mindset. Our intentional approach to watches for men and women is meant to simplify your experience and enhance your journey.

This 'blackout' Skagen Hagen features a black on black matte dial with three-hand movement, luminescent indexes, and a date window.

Evolve the way you think about time. Slow watches were created to shift the way people read time. So rather than focusing on the second or the minute they have produced an instrument that measures the moment.

Slow does not describe a speed as a mindset that most of us somehow lost. As a result of our busy lifestyles, we often forget that we actually have a choice of how to live. The slow watch is a subtle reminder that time is the most precious thing we have so we should enjoy everything we do and stop chasing every minute.

Part of Rosendahl's inspiration is their legacy. They stay true to classic Danish watch designs - both the famous and the forgotten - and ensure that they live on by providing high quality and relevant designs.

There is no room for grey-areas in ZIIIRO’s provocative 50/50 watch face Lunar. Moving in a clock-wise direction, the light half moon consumes the watch face with time to come, while the dark side represents what lies ahead in the future. Thereby it is forming a constantly changing, interlocked icon on your wrist. The sophisticated two-part Lunar casing is constructed using brushed 316L stainless steel.

This special black edition of the Ziiiro Eclipse uses the strongest patented Swiss Super-LumiNova dark blue pigment on watch dial and minute hand which offers day and night visibility with bright illumination in the dark. Forget the days when you have to look for a light source or dig your pockets for the mobile phone to read time in the dark. This watch glows in the dark with sufficient activation by sunlight or artificial light.