This year’s two new additions to the Issey Miyake wath range are by two famous japanese designers. Tokujin Yoshioka and Naoto Fukasawa. Since there are no press images available, I’m only able to post Tokujin’s watch that builds on his current transparent style that dominates his work.
There are a lot of new fashion watch brands launched every year but there are very few that truly breakout. Even rarer is a long term collaboraton between a breakout brand and a design firm that has gone from strength to strength each year. Such is the relationship between Nixon and Cinco.
Established in 1997, Nixon was an attempt to reboot the wristwatch accessory market in the action sport genre. Watches previously sold in skate and surf shops didn’t serve their market well and Nixon saw an opening. However, the brand quickly attained crossover appeal and now is a success story with a presence in over 25 countries and a product range that includes watches, soft goods and now headphones.
There are a number of reasons for Nixon’s success – their ability to conjure up enthusiasm in their action sport segment, their unorthodox brand positioning but most of all, it is their product design that adds a fresh twist to the current world of mainstream wristfashion.
So, ever curious, I recently spoke with Matt Capozzi of Cinco about their work with Nixon. Matt has always worked in the action sports industry and has had the unique opportunity of having worked both with Cinco as a client as part of Nixon and now as Cinco’s Product Experience Director:
Could you tell us how Cinco got around working with Nixon?
Matt Capozzi: This one goes way back. Before starting Cinco with 4 other friends Kirk James worked back in Vermont at JDK on many great projects including Burton Snowboards. One of his main clients was Andy Laats who would later start Nixon. Years after working together Andy was starting to formalize his plans with Chad Dinenna to start Nixon. They needed a design partner to help with many aspects of the brand from naming, identity and logo, to the overall look and feel as well as their product, packaging, retail and tradeshow booths. That was back in 1997 and we are still designing almost every technical product they make here at Cinco today. Since then like Nixon has grown, so has Cinco. We are now a studio of over 35 here in Portland bringing our wholistic brand, digital and product design strategy to many of the worlds top brands in the lifestyle, entertainment and consumer electronics space.
How would you define Cinco’s design approach when it comes to watches?
The I’m watch reeks of ‘Lets make an iphone for the wrist’. It’s a watch that allows you to make phone calls, listen to music and do everything you would imagine a mini iphone watch should do including having its own app store. The watch is currently set to have apps like Skype, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. There is no word about battery life and the watch borrows its visual language heavily from the iphone when it could’ve clearly avoided it thus making it feel like a glorified ipod nano knockoff.
The product is still very much a concept stage with a scheduled launch in September. Prices will range from a titanium model at 599€ to the most expensive white gold & diamonds model at 14,999€. I am not impressed.
Collector’s Weekly did an interview with Vintage Wristwatch Collector and Author Jeff Hess which includes an interesting anecdote about how he hunted down the designer of the Hamilton Electric movement:
One guy led to another who led to another, and finally one guy said, “Oh, yes, those were designed by old Richard Arbib.” And the name came forward – Richard Arbib.
I asked if he was still living, and they said, “Oh, I’m sure he’s long gone,” but not wanting to give up, I got back on the telephone. I started in Pennsylvania where Hamilton was, calling all around the towns, looking for Richard Arbib. I found nothing, and finally I thought I may be on the wrong track and should start with big cities. I called New York City information, and sure enough there was a Richard Arbib listed. I called him up and said, “Are you Richard Arbib that used to design for Hamilton?” and he said, “Yes, I am. I’m amazed that anybody even knows that.” I told him I wanted to interview him, and he said, “Come on up.”
Breil is reaching out to the international design community for inspiration for their collection. They’ve teamed up with designboom for a competition where they will be doling out 3000 euros to each of the top three designs. This isn’t one of those hypothetical design fiction competition. They are seeking an attractive, feasible design, analog, stainless steel that they can manufacture. I can’t wait to see what the competition turns up.
The wrist is prime science fiction real estate and the concept rollerphone by Alexey Chugunikov makes good use of it – its a bracelet that tells the time, is a phone had as a transparent screen that projects on to your fingertips.
Every year French brand, Lip, reissues an old classic from their back catalog. This year, they have launched two remakes – Lip De Gaulle and Himalaya. The original General de Gaulle 1952 watch featured an electronic movement and was not only worn by France’s President de Gaulle, but by Dwight Einsenhower and Bill Clinton. Both of whom are American Presidents. The General de Gaulle re-issue comes with an automatic movement.
The Himalaya is a homage to the original namesake created in 1954. The original Himalaya was popular with the sports playing crowd back in the day due to its shock resistance, though i don’t know if the re-issue is similar in nature.
I found this image of a man wearing his watch collection as a bling neck piece and found it intriguing enough to post it. In fact, I think I wouldn’t mind seeing this catching on.
