Four of the Biggest Surprises from Chicago’s Windup Watch Fair

If you’ve never had the pleasure of attending a Windup Watch Fair in person, it’s hard to express the energy in the room or the unavoidable concentration of enthusiasm that greets you when you step through the doors. From the moment the show opens on Friday to the minute it closes on Sunday, every Windup is a marathon of excited conversation, new friends, and constant discovery — all bound by a vague sense of risk, a sense that (if you should stop and stare for a little too long) you may be walking out of Windup with something new tucked away in your bag and a slightly lighter wallet.

Of course, for all their similarities, no two Windups are the same. The character of each host city plays a huge part in this — it’s hard to quantify the difference between a bay-side view in San Francisco in May and a downtown October day in New York City — but throw in different brands, different people, different venues, and (possibly most importantly) different watches and you’ll find that every Windup comes with the distinct chance to surprise.

So, to that end, with a few days between me and the end of Windup Chicago 2024, I thought I would take a moment to fill you in on some of the watches and moments that surprised me at this summer’s hottest watch fair.

NATO’s Don’t Need Holes

It seems like a fitting place to start this endeavor would be with the only booth at Windup Chicago that got me to pull out my wallet not once, but twice. Like so many of us, I go absolutely nuts for a good NATO-style strap. I have drawers littered with them, and they are a consistent part of my wrist-borne apparel.

If I were to be honest with myself, I hardly have a need for more NATO straps in my life, but since this isn’t a hobby that tends to correlate with that kind of brutal level of self-honesty, I constantly have my eyes open for new and great fabric straps. I first encountered Spring Made straps back at Windup San Francisco in May, but (as can happen in the sometimes overwhelming halls of Windup) I really didn’t get to spend any time looking at the straps up close.

Once I finally did at Windup Chicago, it was game over, and I left this summer’s show with a trio of Spring Made straps, none of which took long to find semi-permanent homes between the lugs of appropriate watches. The big selling point of the Spring Made straps is the complete adjustability that comes thanks to its friction-fit hardware, eliminating the need for predetermined sizing.

It’s an elegant solution to a problem that can be incredibly frustrating, and so far I’m really enjoying these straps. I will admit that it takes some time to figure out the best method for tightening them — it can be very easy to accidentally loosen the strap when you go to lock it down, at least at first — but it didn’t take all that long to get the whole thing sorted out, and a week in, I’m absolutely loving these straps. I may even need to get more.

Am I Into PVD Watches?

One of my big blind spots over the fifteen years I’ve been collecting watches has been black cases. It’s not that I don’t appreciate them from a design standpoint, but I just haven’t been able to make PVD or DLC-cased watches stick in my own collection. And so it goes that, every couple of years, I pick up a nice DLC watch, wear it for a few months, and let it go. In 2024, it seems that itch is creeping back.

Thankfully, a quick wander around Venue West offered up some compelling options for those drawn in by the idea of something matte and black on the wrist. Foremost among these is the Lorier Hydra III Zulu, a watch that has had my attention since it launched last year, and — though I keep screwing up and missing the drops — the 1980s action movie-inspired GMT still draws me in every time I see it.

Of course, if the Arnold aesthetic doesn’t do much for you, there are plenty of other options to be found. Foremost among these were offerings from one brand well known to Windup audiences, and from one brand who made their world debut at Windup Chicago 2024.

If you’ve been a regular at Windup over the last few years, Sō Labs will not be a new name to you. For the last few years, since the release of their wildly fun Layer One watch, Sō Labs has had our attention. That first watch, which introduced a fun new display of time, was rather Swatch-like in its conception, with bright dials, plastic cases, quartz movements, and a genuinely impulse-worthy price tag. 

Our interest was only compounded when they followed that up with the Layer Two, a steel-cased, automatic watch that offered all the fun of its predecessor while offering a little more of a sense of permanence. And it comes in black. The Obsidian Frost colorway caught my attention not only for the matte black case (whose finish gives it an almost plastic look, which I mean in the absolute best way) but for the bright pink and blue dial disks and accents that keep this blacked-out beauty from feeling even remotely somber.

The last black watch I desperately need to talk about came from a brand new brand called ARTEFKT, which introduced itself at Windup Chicago and will be launching fully later this year. I’m sure much will be made of this brand as we see more from them this year, but suffice it to say for now that the ARTEFKT One, their launch model, is an absolute win. 

With a slim grade 5 titanium case and remarkable potential for evolution, the ARTEFKT One was an absolute hit of the show. I have my eye on the hand-worn DLC limited edition, which absolutely stood out with its sunburst green dial and military green rubber strap. This is a watch I could see myself taking on many an adventure, and loving even more once it takes a couple of good gouges.

Bring It Home

English watchmaking is back — and in a big way. If anyone had any doubts, they only had to look as far as the Christopher Ward booth in the closing minutes of last weekend’s Euro-cup final to have those doubts assuaged. With the tense final minutes of the quadrennial tournament ticking away, a veritable who’s who of English watch brands clustered around the booth.

And while the boys in white may have failed to bring home the Euro trophy for the second straight final (ouch), I can say with certainty that — in addition to Christopher Ward — brands like William Wood, Studio Underd0g, Anordain, Paulin, Elliot Brown, and Farer have made huge steps to bring watchmaking back to Britain, the true homeland of the modern watch industry (sorry Switzerland, but it’s true).

One of the clearest indications of the profound interest in British watch brands (besides Anordain’s impressive waitlists) was the massive demand for Studio Underd0g’s Pizza Party watches, which they introduced in collaboration with Time + Tide earlier this year. From the moment the show opened, crowds descended on the Studio Underd0g booth to snap up the unique chronographs, which can only be purchased in person.

English watchmaking has as strong a history — stronger even — as you can find in any watchmaking country in the world. Seeing this new generation of English and British brands take center stage was an absolute treat for me, and any other fan of English watchmaking (or Thomas Mudge). And who knows, maybe next time the Three Lions will bring it home as well.

Compelling Chronographs

We all have our home base watches — the ones that helped solidify our taste and set us on our respective collecting paths. For me, many of the earliest watches that caught my eye, and many of my earliest watches, were chronographs. Over the last few years though, my attention has drifted, and I’ve found myself in somewhat of a chronograph drought. So I’m not really sure if it was a surprise or a natural regression that, while exploring Windup Chicago, I found myself pulled in the direction of a number of exciting new chronographs, some from my favorite brands and watchmakers.

One of the watches I was hands down most excited to get hands on with at Windup Chicago was the new Farer Monopusher GMT. Farer is a brand I’ve greatly enjoyed watching evolve over the last decade, and this latest release may be my favorite yet. It feels quintessentially Farer, but also like something pulled directly from an old Abercrombie & Fitch catalog (A&F of the Hemingway era, not the ‘90s, to be very clear). 

Seeing the watch in person did not disappoint, and I’m amazed to see such an interesting combination of complications in what is really a very affordable watch. I’m always intrigued by new releases from Farer, and this is yet another example of how the brand doesn’t seem to know how to disappoint.

But if the Farer feels like it could have been plucked from the ‘60s, another chronograph that grabbed my attention was 1980s through and through. The Isotope Chronograph Moonshot, which should launch later this year once several small changes are made and details worked out, is the sci-fi chronograph that dreams are made of. 

With a shape evocative of the Teutonic Omega Speedmasters of the early ‘80s, and a dial punctuated by rotating discs and floating lume, the Chronograph Moonshot would look more at home in Alien than on Earth. Still, this is a watch I can’t wait to spend some time with, and I hope I get to see it on my wrist sooner than later.