The modern incarnation of Swiss watch brand Nivada Grenchen is the practical definition of “right place, right time.”
The brand initially shut its doors at the height of the Quartz Crisis, as mechanical watches had fallen out of favor due to the lower cost and better accuracy provided by battery-powered quartz watches.
Fast-forward to today, and the reborn Nivada — which was resurrected in 2020 — has found a perfect home in the modern mechanical watch market. By reissuing vintage models from its mid-century heyday, the brand can offer up more affordable alternatives to popular luxury watches while simultaneously laying claim to the legitimate history of those same styles.
For instance, in the 1950s, the original Nivada Antarctic was just one of many similar adventure-ready tool watches, while today’s version is the best affordable Rolex Explorer alternative. In the 1960s, Nivada was one of several brands to use “exotic” dials made by Singer in its chronographs. The watches that use those dials today have as much of a claim to the “Paul Newman” dial as the unobtainable Rolex Daytona.
Which brings me to Nivada’s latest release. The brand has issued a new version of its Depthmaster dive watch, and while the watch follows the same basic blueprint as Nivada’s existing Depthmaster reissues, the new Midnight Blue colorway and a couple of design tweaks make this the most contemporary version of the diver we’ve seen yet.
Nivada Grenchen
