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A new brand is the talk of the watch world today, and the latest example of a trend we’ve seen developing over the last several years. GRØNE is the new project from Bart and Tim Grönefeld, the brothers behind the Grönefeld brand, one of the most acclaimed indies in the world. Following in the footsteps of the M.A.D. 1 project, Kurono Tokyo, and others, the brand exists as a way for admirers of a high priced independent maker to buy into the aesthetic and perspective of the brand at a much more affordable price point. The first release from GRØNE, the Manueel One, carries a retail price of just 2,150 Euros. At retail, Grönefeld watches start at around 50,000 Euros and go up from there. They are also very low production, with fewer than 100 pieces made each year.
The Manueel One, according to Bart and Tim, was inspired by a desire to bring their watches to “our our watchmakers, our children, and our friends.” If this sentiment sounds familiar, it’s nearly identical to Max Büsser’s reasoning behind the M.A.D. 1 project, which was initially only offered to friends of the brand, including partners that Max and his team had worked with for years. Like the M.A.D. 1, the Manueel One borrows some aesthetic and design principles from the higher priced watches the brand is known for, but it does so without the serious attention to craft and watchmaking you’d get with an atelier made timepiece. That’s to be expected, of course. Anyone thinking that an order for the Manueel One is an order for the immaculate finishing found on a Principia, for instance, should seriously temper their expectations.
So what do you get with the Manueel One? It’s a sector dial of sorts, with a tremblage inner section in a salmon tone, with an outer metal ring where you’ll find hour and minute markers. The salmon colorway and tremblage finishing are both aesthetic features borrowed from Grönefeld’s atelier-made watches, but it’s worth pointing out that the tremblage finish here is applied with what I’m sure is a very good stamping process. True tremblage, which involves painstaking work of creating micro textures with a tiny hammer and chisel, is not something anyone should expect on a watch at this price point.
The case lines are clearly inspired by the brand’s Rementoir and Principia, and feature prominent scalloped lugs. The design is actually quite complex, with a bezel that’s domed between the lugs but concave along the case flanks. The stainless steel case is polished and measures 38.5mm in diameter and 9mm tall (not including the sapphire crystal). It’s notable, I think, that the Grönefeld brothers have made an attempt to evoke their well known case designs in this watch. An easy comparison point, the Kurono Tokyo watches designed by Hajime Asaoka, take pains to evoke the watchmaker’s aesthetic in the dials, but the cases, in general, lack much of the complexity of his higher priced pieces.
The movement is a manually wound Sellita SW210. Interestingly, the brand claims that the caliber has been “torque adjusted” to achieve a winding feel preferred by the Grönefeld brothers. What does this mean, practically speaking? It’s impossible to know without literally getting our hands on the watch, but this too represents a slightly different approach to this type of watch than what we’ve seen from other brands dipping their toes into the affordable enthusiast driven market. Winding feel is highly subjective, but I think most watch lovers at one point or another have experienced a manually wound movement that just feels great (Naoya Hida, I’m looking at you), so my curiosity is piqued as to what winding this watch will really feel like.
The Manueel One’s existence took us by surprise today, and judging from commentary on Instagram and the Worn & Wound+ Slack group, opinions are really all over the place. In addition to the usual eye rolls about price that seem to accompany literally every watch (because no watches are fairly priced – it’s a universal truth), questions have come up about the various tactics used to sell the Manueel One, namely the use of the term “tremblage” to describe the dial finishing, which has already garnered a response and clarification from Bart Grönefeld himself on Instagram. There is also, I think, a debate that’s due to take place on what it means for high end indies to enter the affordable enthusiast market, particularly in the wake of the huge success of the M.A.D. 1. It can be viewed as an altruistic gesture by these brands on the one hand in getting cool stuff in the hands of true enthusiasts (hopefully), but the opportunity to leverage a luxury brand name for a quick (and substantial) cash infusion can’t be ignored. Not to imply this or any similar watch is a “cash grab” in the traditional, overwhelmingly negative way that term is frequently used, but rather I’m wondering if making more affordable watches alongside higher end pieces under a different brand name could be an entirely new model that could help some independent brands sustain themselves.
GRØNE is making 388 examples of the Manueel One, with pre-orders opening on November 19. All indications on the brand’s new website would seem to point to more watches coming eventually, but there don’t appear to be any hints as to when that might be or what it might mean.
