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One of the more interesting trends to crop up in recent years is the rise in ultra specific niche watches. If you’re part of seemingly almost any community or culture, there’s probably a watch just for you. Really into early 80s rally cars? Autodromo has you covered. Do you love Jurassic Park and hand-lacquered dials? Awake has a watch you might want to check out. And if you happen to be of Greek heritage, or just love the country and its culture, Jacob Hatzidimitriou’s watches made under the Ianos banner will be of interest for sure.
Ianos is interesting because in addition to being a design forward independent brand making dive watches (table stakes these days), they are pulling on a very specific aspect of diving history as it relates to Greek culture. Diving, like pizza, cars, and architecture, has distinct characteristics dependent on geography and purpose. Sponge diving has been a pursuit in Greece for literally thousands of years, and the techniques, history, and visual language of this very specific type diving has informed every Ianos watch in some way to this point in the brand’s history (you can read our coverage of previous Ianos releases here and here).
“Watches always intrigued me, not just as accessories but as expressions of personality,” Jacob told me in an interview. “Over time, I started to see them for what they really are: miniature, intricate machines that, more than anything, carry significant emotional weight. In an age of fast fashion and disposable trends, watches encompass vision, ingenuity and passion, all in a tiny space, where design, mechanics and materials are all blended together to make something beautiful. The fact that so much care, precision, and purpose is put into something that is, at the end of the day, unnecessary nowadays is what I find so intriguing and hopeful about humans in general; an allegory for the pursuit of beauty just for the sake of it.”
The genesis for Ianos and the brand’s Greek-themed watches actually has its roots another country altogether. On his Italian honeymoon in 2013, Jacob had a realization. “While in Capri, I stumbled upon a store selling Swatch-style watches that featured on their dial the island’s iconic clock tower. It struck me,” he continued, “Italians proudly embed their culture into everything, while this is not true for Greeks, despite having an incredibly rich heritage. That realization lingered and lay dormant for years.”
It would be several more years until Jacob began to seriously work on developing Ianos. Without any real experience in the watch industry (Jacob is a lawyer by trade), he dove in seriously in 2017 developing what would become the Avyssos, the brand’s first watch, launched on Kickstarter in 2019. With some distance from those early days, Jacob sees his inexperience as a strength that helped to make the Avyssos a success. “I wasn’t burdened by the rules of the industry and had zero knowledge of the problems I could face with the watch’s design, production, and marketing,” he explained. “I simply wanted to make something original, rooted in storytelling, and proudly Greek; something I would be proud wearing.”
The Dytis is the latest release from Ianos, and completes a dive watch trilogy that tells the story of Greek divers over thousands of years. Each watch is meant to explore a different era of Greek diving. The Avyssos covers ancient Greece, and pays tribute to the divers who discovered the Antikythera mechanism. The follow up, the Mihanikos, is inspired by the industrialization of diving that would occur centuries later. “The Dytis bridges these two worlds,” Jacob told me. “It encompasses all the history of the past, examines the present in a modern package. It borrows the monobloc case construction from the Avyssos and the bolder case shape of the Mihanikos, yet refines them into a more compact, wearable, and forward-looking design.”
The watch is crafted from grade 2 titanium and measures 41mm in diameter, and 49mm from lug to lug. As with previous watches, the indices are modeled after dive stones, and the dial has a gentle bowl shape to give the impression of depth. The watch case is water resistant to 300 meters.
Jacob told me that even though he had a very clear idea of what he wanted the Dytis to be from the beginning, he still encountered production and design challenges along the way, something that is probably unavoidable for small brands working with a spectrum of overseas suppliers. “Matching the dial and hand colors took multiple rounds of samples,” he told me, “and aligning the lume consistency and colour was another time-consuming hurdle that took months to perfect.” The finished product, however, reflects a watch made by a brand with some real experience under its belt. While the visual language of the watch is highly specific and certainly not for everyone, it’s clear that it’s precisely what Jacob intended, and if you view the Dytis alongside the brand’s previous efforts, it’s just as clear that these watches are all in conversation with one another.
To this point, Ianos has worked strictly within the dive watch genre, with some very specific storytelling relating Greek dive culture. But Jacob plans to extend the reach of the brand with future releases. “I like to think of Ianos as a living Greek history book,” he told me, “its stories told one watch at a time. My ultimate goal is for someone who does not necessarily know about Ianos to be able to look back at a family of releases and clearly see the historical origins, progression, and inspiration behind the watches as we have done with our diver trilogy.”
“The themes will move beyond diving,” Jacob continued, “but the core concept will remain the same: deeply human stories, told through meaningful design. Each piece will aim to capture the essence of its inspiration; crafted with care, patience, and purpose. We’re focused on building something that lasts and resonates with our fan base.”
The new Ianos Dytis is available now. The retail price is CHF 1,850. Ianos
