Is Studio Underd0g the Best British Microbrand?

It’s been a few months now since I opened a can of worms on WatchGecko Magazine by somewhat boldly announcing my Top 5 Microbrands. Naturally, it didn’t take long for the comments to flood with outcries for justice from those who felt their favourite microbrands had been overlooked or forgotten about. Funnily enough though, nobody seemed to disagree with my top choice.

Sitting pretty in the number one spot were Studio Underd0g, a British microbrand who’ve garnered much support, respect and awe in the industry over the past few years and who have rapidly rocketed from the relative unknown to international status as one of the hottest watch brands to watch right now, particularly after the recent announcement of a certain watch collaboration…

Studio Underd0g is the brainchild of Richard Benc (CEO and Founder), a Product Design graduate from the University of Nottingham. Having spent his early career years working in London as a designer, Benc was responsible for designing children’s character watches. Famously, the first of these was a disc-shooting Minions watch but, lucky for those of us above the age of ten, he was unwilling to stop there.

As the world began to lockdown in Spring 2020, like many of us, Richard found himself under-stimulated by the conditions of staying inside. Combined with his boredom and frustration regarding the ‘stuffy’ watch releases the industry was cooing over, Benc decided to take matters into his own hands.

He set himself a design-led brief to come up with something that might inject a little more ‘fun’ into the industry and eventually the first draft was shared with enthusiasts on a ‘Microbrand Watches’ Facebook page. Having received some overwhelmingly positive feedback, he got to work and officially launched the Studio Underd0g brand in March of 2021 with his first quartet of colourful watches following the year after.

The first wave of releases saw four quirky chronograph models make their way into the Underd0g catalogue. Presented with degradé dials, mid-century vintage silhouettes and bright colourways the design language of the models is what we now know as Richard’s signature style. Able to take a classic and flip it on its head, Benc has an extremely skilful knack for taking what we think we’re familiar with and serving it back up with an unexpected and refreshing twist.

Reasonably priced at under £500, thanks to the use of a Chinese movement (Seagull ST-190), Richard made use of a good old fashioned ‘dupe’ to ensure his first launch would be affordable. The Chinese calibre at the heart of the 01Series models is essentially a Swiss Venus 175 movement, a well-known column-wheel chronograph calibre that has powered the likes of Heuer, Breitling and Gallet. The tooling Seagull used to manufacture the movement was even allegedly brought from Switzerland to China in the 1960’s. Cool, right?

For the 02Series Benc moved into Field watch territory. Priced slightly higher at £800, the four references make use of the Sellita Manual Winding SW210-1 movement and feature triple layered sandwich dials that have been affixed via two slotted headpins, giving them a chunky look with plenty of depth. The base of the dial shines through with its seven layers of custom-made Super-LumiNova pigment, giving the dials a clever floating effect and casting shadows in daylight for a dynamic and ever-changing appearance.

The fun hasn’t stopped there though, with special editions making their way into the brands repertoire and into the hearts of fans over the years too. Their popular Pizza Party chronos are ‘hand-deliverable’ only, meaning you’ll only be lucky enough to buy one if you’re willing to head out to a watch show and get it from Benc in person, and there have even been a couple of one-off references released which have sold at charity auctions for a combined £22.5k.

Sealing the deal just this past week, the brand unveiled their first ever collaboration with another watchmaker, when it was announced that they’d be releasing a limited-edition set with none other than H. Moser & Cie., a prestigious Swiss luxury watch manufacturer with over 200 years of rich history under their belt. The announcement of their ‘Passion Project’ seemed to ruffle more than a few feathers with fans disappointed that the brand would move out of their affordable microbrand territory in favour of playing with the big boys but, as Richard keeps telling us, you should “never underestimate the Underd0g”.

Considering this is a brand built from the ground up with the sole purpose of disrupting an oftentimes stagnant industry, my feeling is that we shouldn’t be totally surprised to see Benc taking the brand in a more rebellious direction. When we’re dealing with high-low watch collaborations, meaning a typically lower priced brand can start to offer some of the technical elements traditionally reserved for higher-price brands, paying more for the privilege is pretty unavoidable. In this case, the figure is a slightly eye-watering £52,900 (approx.), but you’re getting two watches for the price of one so arguably it’s a reasonable amount of bang for your buck.

And who on earth knows where the Studio Underd0g brand will take us next? Whether it’s back to the kitchen for more tasty, food-related designs or we’re served up something completely weird and wonderful, with Richard Benc at the helm, we’re at least guaranteed that it will never be boring. That’s exactly why they’re at the top of my list for Best Microbrand of all time...