Microbrands. Small teams, direct sales and a story you can say in a sentence, from a boat on the Thames to the Prime Minister’s wrist.
A microbrand is a small, usually young watch company that designs its own watches and sells them directly. They rarely have the history of the houses above, but they have changed who talks about watches. The model was proved abroad first, and India’s brands are now running with it.
Christopher Ward: the global template
Mike France, Peter Ellis and Chris Ward started the brand in 2004 on a boat on the Thames, with the aim of making “the cheapest most expensive watches in the world”. It began with simple Swiss-made watches advertised in the back of magazines and sold online only, to cut out retail mark-ups, and it found its first global audience through enthusiast forums. It merged with Swiss movement maker Synergies Horlogères in 2014 and has since added showrooms alongside its website.
The brand has since climbed well above its entry-level roots. Its C1 Bel Canto, a chiming watch, is often called the world’s most affordable chiming watch, and writers who track the brand say it can now sell out a watch costing several thousand pounds with ease. At the other end, the C63 Sealander, a Sellita-powered everyday watch, sits under $1,000. That range, from accessible to ambitious, is the template other microbrands study.
Spinnaker: a maritime brand with a bigger parent
Spinnaker’s dive watches, such as the Fleuss, named after the rebreather pioneer Henry Fleuss, and the Croft, are admired for value and have reached department-store shelves abroad, including El Palacio de Hierro in Mexico. They show the other side of the label: the brand comes from a larger international company with a history of making watches, so some enthusiasts argue it is not a true microbrand. The debate itself shows how fuzzy the category has become.
The Indian wave
Indian brands have taken the same ingredients, a story, a direct line to buyers and Swiss or Japanese movements, and added something the others cannot: a home market with its own history to put on the dial. Three stand out.
Delhi Watch Company: the Terra reaches abroad
Anish Dandwani founded it in 2020, rooted in two HMT watches his grandfather gave him. The Terra, made for its fifth anniversary, is a carabiner-inspired rectangle with no conventional lugs. The titanium version was limited to 5,555 pieces at ₹3,999 and sold out almost at once, and it drew coverage in the UK, where The Wind Up headlined it as the £35 watch getting people talking, and in reviews by Worn & Wound and HiConsumption. A steel version later opened a 72-hour pre-order window capped at 30,000 units.
Jaipur Watch Company: coins on the wrist
Gaurav Mehta sold his car and borrowed from friends to start it in 2013, with a workshop in Bengaluru and a first sales channel through Tata CLiQ Luxury. Its Baagh collection, launched for India’s 75th Independence Day, puts a real 1947 one-rupee coin, the last minted under British rule, on the dial of a 43 mm steel watch with a Miyota 8215 automatic. The brand priced it at ₹45,000 to ₹50,000 then, and aBlogtoWatch reviewed the Roman Baagh at about $635. Celebrity wrists have done the marketing: Ed Sheeran wore a Baagh on a Netflix chat show in 2024, and the Prime Minister has been seen in a Roman Baagh through late 2025 and 2026. The brand says it is opening its first retail outlets in Dubai in 2026.
Bangalore Watch Company: the story-first brand
Nirupesh Joshi and Mercy Amalraj founded it in 2018 after leaving tech-consulting careers abroad. They were told it might not see a second year, and there was no ready ecosystem for making good watches in India. The first watch, the Renaissance, nods to Bangalore and the HMT era. The MACH 1 pilot collection, launched in 2019, tells Indian aviation stories on a Swiss Sellita automatic: the original is inspired by the MiG-21, the Admiral uses steel recovered from the INS Vikrant, and the Silk Scarf, with its pink Aerobloom dial and an etched aviator’s scarf on the caseback, honours women in Indian aviation. Prices have risen with its reputation: the Silk Scarf launched at ₹86,000 and is listed at ₹1,40,000 on the brand’s site today, while the Admiral is ₹2,78,000. In 2026 it announced the Forty-Seven, a 46 mm Swiss-quartz pocket watch at ₹1,20,000, and its collectors now span more than 30 countries.
Why it matters: what these brands share is a clear idea, a reachable price and a direct line to buyers. The Indian ones add a story no foreign brand can tell, which is why they are capturing the imagination of newcomers and long-time collectors alike.
Key facts
| Christopher Ward | 2004, Maidenhead, UK – online and direct – Swiss-made – merged with Synergies Horlogères in 2014 |
| Spinnaker | Maritime dive watches (Fleuss, Croft) – microbrand status debated |
| Delhi Watch Company | 2020, Delhi – DWC Terra, ₹3,999 (titanium, 5,555 pieces) |
| Jaipur Watch Company | 2013, Jaipur and Bengaluru – coin watches – Baagh, 43 mm, Miyota 8215 |
| Bangalore Watch Company | 2018, Bengaluru – MACH 1 from ₹1,40,000 (Silk Scarf) – Forty-Seven pocket watch ₹1,20,000 |
Sources: Wikipedia, WatchTime, Business Traveller and Vivir on Christopher Ward; Hour Striker on Spinnaker; Esquire India, Worn & Wound, The Wind Up and Delhi Watch Company on the Terra; aBlogtoWatch, YourStory, Gulf News, Business Today and Abraxas Lifestyle on Jaipur Watch Company; Bangalore Watch Company’s website and press release, aBlogtoWatch, Monochrome, Deployant and Le Nouveau Réveil on Bangalore Watch Company. Images: Coveted (Christopher Ward), Delhi Watch Company, and aBlogtoWatch (Jaipur and Bangalore), credited on each; no media kits were available to us, and we have no image for Spinnaker yet.
