We are living through a microbrand gold rush. Every year there are more and more new watch companies that pop up at varying price points, each desperate to carve out a niche for themselves amidst the sea of sport watches or otherwise—a dial variation here, a case shape tweak there and, if we’re lucky, one or two unique design elements. Not to be confused with the high-end independents, of course, which are also thriving, many of these brands are intentionally approachably priced.

It’s a sea of choice, an absolute buyer’s watch market if ever there was one. But amidst all the choice, there are seldom new watches that feel, well, actually new. Enter Toledano & Chan—a bold new watch brand from visual artist and collector Phil Toledano and automotive and watch designer Alfred Chan. What started as a conversation between two watch and car enthusiasts on other sides of the world, turned into what is possibly the most surprising and visually interesting watch of the year.

Toledano & Chan’s B/1 is a bold, sculptural watch, inspired by the brutalist architectural designs of Marcel Breuer—specifically, The Breuer Building on the corner of Madison Avenue and 75th street in New York City. Even more specifically, the design for the head of the B/1 came from the angular, jutting fenestrations along The Breuer Building’s facade.

Where far too many brands these days rely on existing design codes for their inspiration, Toledano & Chan sought to create something that was genuinely unique. The inspiration of integrated-bracelet sport watches like the Rolex King Midas are certainly present, from the most basic interpretation of the case and bracelet profile to the use of lapis lazuli on the dial. However, to interpret the B/1 through that lens alone would be a mistake, ignoring all of the dimensionality that this new design brings to the table.

Despite making reference to watches of the 1960’s and 1970’s, the B/1 is not, itself, referential. That is to say, its design does not begin and end with those watches that influenced it. As Toledano explains, “I feel like it’s kind of disrespectful when you make something, not to try and push the language forward or to add a new word to the vocabulary of the world you’re inhabiting. There are ideas within there that may be familiar, but we’re also hopefully saying something new.”

When designing the watch, there was a clear willingness to not be tied to existing popular aesthetics or trends. That ability for the design process to be untethered to convention came, frankly, as a result of Toledano’s inexperience crashing head on into Chan’s skill as a designer. As Toledano puts it, “I was always saying, why don’t we do this? Why don’t we do that? He’s like, ‘oh, I guess I never really thought about it that way’ he said, ‘the good thing about working with you is that you don’t know anything, so everything is possible.’”

The combination of that willingness to consider different unique concepts, combined with Chan’s expertise as a designer, resulted in details in the watch’s construction that beg to be explored. According to Toledano, “I feel like in some ways, the combination of someone who’s utterly clueless and someone who really knows what they’re doing is a weapons-grade-level combination.”

The result of that “secret weapon” dynamic is a watch that, in so many ways, is a study in contrast. The brushed and sandblasted finishing along the case’s sharp faceted sides, the abrupt angles on each link of the bracelet, the contrasting finish on the handset, or even the concrete and resin watch box it comes with, all serve to illustrate juxtaposition and draw the eye deeper and deeper into the watch itself.

That concept is further illustrated by the choice to pair such a cold, brutalist design with a dial made of lapis lazuli—the opulence of the stone colliding with the austerity of the rest of the watch. As though that combination isn’t compelling (and jarring) enough, the dial is framed with the same asymmetry and forced perspective as Breuer’s windows, creating an optical illusion of sorts. The result is a watch which encourages, even requires, to be studied and examined from more angles than simply top-down whilst reading it on the wrist. It’s a watch that, much like a sculpture, needs to be experienced “in the round.”

Fortunately, the industry seems to be in a place where there is general openness to new design, or at the very least a willingness to entertain something different. Less emphasis is put on what is “on-trend” and more on what the watch in question says to its owner. It’s a climate of style that allows for more self-expression from the end consumers. But similarly, it encourages companies to take more risk and fundamentally reconsider the concept of style, or in this case, shape.

Or at least, that’s the ambition, as Toledano hesitantly says, “I’ll probably get abused for saying it but, I mean, we talked a lot about wanting to make something iconic—that would be our dream. When you look at a lot of the truly iconic watches, the Crash, the Midas, the Nautilus, the Royal Oak, those are all shape based watches. And so for us, we wanted to make a shape that lasts for a long time.”

While the B/1 certainly makes for a cool-looking watch, one that is faintly reminiscent of certain integrated bracelet designs of the ‘60s and ‘70s, it is also something that, frankly, is missing from the current landscape of relatively affordable watches  – visually challenging design that actually moves the conversation forward. “I know it’s naive and kind of ridiculous that before the watch is even out to say you want to make an icon, but that would be the dream. Otherwise, what’s the point of doing it? If I was just some rich geezer doing it for the weekend, I guess then I would just be doing it for ego. But I’m an artist, the goal of the art that I make is always to try and push the world forward in some tiny, tiny way. And if you can do that, it’s a real privilege.”

The most compelling part of the B/1 is that, while it’s a cool, unique, and even slightly weird looking watch, it is also a beautiful and compelling design object. Like a sculpture, it requires the viewer to slow down and engage with its angularity, to explore its complexity, and reconcile its contradictions to fully understand and enjoy it. Only then, once you actively participated in the design of the thing, can you actually learn from and be enriched by it.

Otherwise, why not just make the thing round?

Interested in learning more? Head to Toledano & Chan’s website