The watch scene in the United States, long a predictable and quiet market of watch lovers and buyers, is changing. That’s thanks in part to America’s own kind of volatility: a crucible of American watchmakers and small brands, rising and falling, growing and changing, duking it out for a whole new market of Americans who want to wear a watch made by an American company. The American Watch Renaissance is real. It’s also complicated.
“It’s total chaos,” said Nick Harris, a former Seiko modder who went to Seattle’s Watch Technology Institute and started his own brand, Orion, when I asked him what it’s like to be a small American watchmaker today. “It’s a madhouse.”
American watchmaking has laid dormant since the 1940s, when prominent US watchmakers, already on the decline, were forced to turn their factories to wartime production. Switzerland, neutral during WWII, capitalized, and American watch brands never recovered. American buyers got perfectly comfy with their Rolexes and their Seikos. Then, in 2011, Shinola woke some of those buyers up with watches that used Swiss quartz movements but were put together in its Detroit factory. A small army of brands has followed suit.
It’s not always been rose gold and sunburst dials. Shinola got shellacked by the FTC in 2015 over “American-made” labeling; there’ve been fights over “in-house” claims by up-and-coming brands, and names like Niall have winked out of business in an instant.
The biggest trends, though, have been great for consumers. Quality mechanical watchmakers of the old school like RGM have quietly stayed the course, keeping traditional, luxury-level watchmaking alive Stateside — and have been joined by inspiring young brands like J.N. Shapiro. Larger, mainstream brands, Shinola included, are all-in for mechanical watches. Smaller first-wave brands like Weiss are continuing to grow and break into the public consciousness. The affordable market has shattered into a sea of microbrands run by up-and-comers like Harris, some of them successful, and each with its own dynamic vision and accessible models.
The result for buyers today is more great watches at every price range, from $100 to $10,000. While there are a great many American watch brands worth checking out (more than would reasonably fit on this list), below are some of our favorites.
