Collaborations between brands are common. Those making often dissimilar products find common elements to their approaches to manufacture, style and even marketing. The link has been made before (and covered here on the blog) between the production of denim jeans and fine engineering so it's no surprise to find Swiss watch makers Oris teaming up with Japanese company Momotaro who weave the best Zimbabwean cotton to make denim cloth for their jeans.
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| Wearing the Oris x Momotaro diver: 40mm and slim on the wrist |
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| Momotaro denim |
Momotaro have only been making jeans since 2006. Indeed, the Japanese denim industry is still young, having grown from the enthusiasm of Japanese youth for all things American (read the book Ametora by Marx W. David for the full story). Inspired to start creating their own denim, Japan now produces some of the world's most highly sought after cloths, renowned for their colour and the beauty with which they age as they wear.
Weaving deeply indigo-dyed cotton using vintage shuttle looms produces a cloth that has a handmade quality, a variation of texture and colour that denim enthusiasts find lacking in the more uniform denim produced on modern machines. The link with Oris, also a smaller and independent company producing quality products by hand, was obvious and the collaboration was born.
The watch arrives in a Momotaro denim wallet and has a denim strap marked with the Japanese company's signature white 'battle stripes'. Its bronze and steel case is well finished and the dial has a graduated green/blue finish - not unlike faded denim, though I'm not sure that was the intention.
I've not handled many Oris watches, but I like the fact that they are made to a distinct house 'feel', are always reasonably priced and are generally good looking timepieces. The Oris x Momotaro special edition diver is 40mm wide and, with its screw-down crown, is water resistant to 100m. It feels comfortable on the wrist and combines style with utility very well, making it useful as an all-round watch, although it has no date display should you want such a thing.
Priced at £1700, see Oris Watches.
This is an unsponsored post. I was lent the watch for review.
