Undone Watches Review | Old and New Collide
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If you’re familiar with wristwatches, chances are you’ve probably heard of this brand before. Since their launch in 2014, they’ve done a good job of getting their products into influencers hands, including mine. They sent me these about 10 months ago for me to take a look at on my Ben Arthur YouTube channel.
Undone has a rather unique value proposition. They offer vintage styled watches with modern components; not only that but you can modify many aspects of your watch with their online customizer program.
Undone Watch Customizer
I’d say this is coolest part of the whole process. It’s by far the cleanest and easiest program of its kind that I’ve tried for wristwatches. You get to choose from a variety of dial options, you can customise the colour of the case, the style of hands, the type of strap. There are a massive number of possibilities with this editor and it works really well. You can even get letters or a logo printed onto these, though I chose not to for these.
Realistically, it’s not true bespoke customisation. You can’t send the brand custom designs and get them to make a specific watch to your requirements or anything like that. That would be a miracle for £200. Either way, I think the way this is set up makes it easier for both brand and customer and as such, is probably the best method. More options might be better moving forward though, I wish you could have options to change the glass or movement.
The watches do look incredibly realistic on-screen and the colours are very true-to reality. The customizer still works very smoothly even on my terrible decade old laptop, this apparently also works on tablets if you have one of those.
I’ve got a few of these to look at, I tried to get hold of some different models in this urban series, which was the only one available at the time. Two are customised slightly, two are just standard.
Here’s my thoughts on them overall, I’ll look at them individually at some point. To be clear, they haven’t paid me any money in exchange for guaranteed coverage or positive feedback, they don’t know this watch blog exists either.
Brand/Manufacturing
If horology is important to you, this may not be the route to go down. Undone was only created a few years ago, it’s not got the decades of history of more established brands. The founder Michael Young is apparently a luxury watch expert though, he’s a well-renowned repairer in the community; it’s nice to know the guy at the head of this has some experience.
These watches are all made in Hong Kong. I think the manufacturing is far better than other Chinese made watches I’ve come across before. They have some short clips of the manufacturing process online. My general impression is that the craftsmanship is decent; it’s definitely not one of those brands made in street-side sweatshops by 5-year olds.
One thing to note is these microbrand watches don’t have the same level of resale value as more famous brand-named pieces, so keep that in mind.
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO REVIEW:
Watch Design
Undone watches offers a variety of designs to choose from; most of the ones I own are chronographs. As you can probably tell these offer designs inspired by famous watches throughout history, with a real vintage vibe. My two favourites are definitely the Urban Killy and Mystique. The Urban Killy has a real 1920’s vibe about it and the style and colour go surprisingly well with a variety of outfits. The Mystique watch is dressier and the dial has a beautiful sunburst effect in this dark blue. This one looks as good in person as online and I think is great for a £200 watch! Those two particularly are some of the most complimented watches in my collection.
The other two don’t tickle my fancy so much, there are definitely some major speedmaster feelings here and while they look fine, they just don’t grab me. Overall though, each of them has an interesting amount of depth and texture and the logo is really small so I think they are generally tastefully done. You have a distinct variety of models, that’s for sure. Most of these only contain really minor lume, which aren’t really expected for these watch styles.
As they are part of the same Undone watch range, they all have the same case shape and size:
- 39.5mm Diameter
- 13mm Case Depth
- 20mm Lug Width
Overall, they are a really versatile size and will look proportional with a variety of wrist sizes. Nevertheless, more size options would really be appreciated. I would still prefer something like a 37mm version. In a perfect world, I think proportionally, the lugs might look nicer if they were a bit shorter.
Watch Glass and Case
The case construction overall is solid. This is made of 316L stainless steel, as with pretty much every watch nowadays. You get a mixture of brushed and polished surfaces. The quality of this steel does seem to be really good, I’ve worn these fairly regularly and really haven’t scratched them much at all, so I think they’ve done a good job with sourcing this.
With the customizer, you can also choose to have a plain rear or a full display case-back; revealing the movement within. Either option will come with a low 3ATM water resistance, which is to be expected with this type of watch.
These are fitted with a piece of domed K1 mineral crystal. While these do look great and I prefer them to a flat piece of glass, it’s still really frustrating. There’s honestly no excuse for not having sapphire glass when it comes to a watch retailing for over £200 a pop. I asked the brand about this, they basically said it was a design decision; I’m not buying it, I think it’s an area they have just cut costs. The mineral crystal will provide some limited scratch protection but won’t nearly perform as well as sapphire for the most part.
These come with a signed crown and great feeling pushers for the chronograph functions.
Undone Movement
Undone watches are typically powered by Seiko VK61 Mecha-Quartz movements. This is kind of a hybrid between a quartz/battery powered watch and a mechanical one. This essentially means you get a sweeping second hand, whilst retaining very high accuracy and reliability. Personally, I really like these movements as they are really quiet and keep fantastic time whilst still being quite slim on the wrist. Given the fact these movements don’t have any visible moving parts, I think it’s counter intuitive to really have the display case-back as an option. There is nothing on show here outside of some static metal. Unless it’s mechanical, I don’t see the point.
On that note, while I think this movement is a good choice for a watch like this, you can get a variety of automatic watches for this price for much less. If you prefer mechanical watches, these don’t have that same special aura or craftsmanship in my eyes. Nevertheless, outside of something like a Sea-Gull 1963, there really aren’t many automatic chronograph options to choose from at this price point anyway.
Watch Straps
I think there is some variance in the straps when it comes to both design and quality. On the customizer, you can select from a variety of different styles and colours; all of the ones I have here are made of genuine leather, which is a low grade of leather. The one I got on the Urban Killy feels cheap and plasticky. I don’t think this will wear very well over time, this one isn’t the default one with the Killy, I foolishly changed to this one as I thought it looked better online so maybe sticking with the default is a better option. The rally strap on the tropical piece feels much better but does scratch really easily.
The two black straps are by far the best and feel more structured and solid; especially the one on the mystique, which looks similar to the one with the Killy but is leagues better for some reason. Arguably one of the best quality straps I’ve come across.
Each of these come with a regular buckle and tang and the quick release tabs for fast alterations. There are other options on their website, which I haven’t tried. Overall, a mixed bag, nothing terrible but not consistently great either.
Price & Thoughts
You can buy the majority of their pre-designed watches for £200. Discount codes are readily dished out to influencers, which will normally give you a 10% discount, making them £180. If you are customising one, that may incur some extra costs depending on what options you choose.
I think overall that’s a fair price. On paper, these watches don’t look too far off some of the infamous fashion watches that I’ve covered before. You know which I’m talking about. I’ve heard a bunch of people online claiming they are the same sort of thing. From my experience over the last year with these, I think these are a far better proposition. There are some similarities, such as the strong social media presence, the region of manufacturing and the lack of real brand heritage and I can understand that. It may put some people off.
They are slightly more expensive too but I think offer more value on a number of levels.
The level of finishing is really nice on these, definitely comparable to similarly priced Orient models, which are often considered some of the best watches at this price point. The stock designs have clearly had careful thought put into them, the choice of movement is somewhat interesting and the fact you can customise large portions of the watch gives Undone a fairly unique selling point. There are other brands who have comparable design systems but this is by far the best I’ve seen, especially for the price. The gift box they come in is even better than most I’ve come across too.
I’ve seen them advertised as luxury before, do I think that’s true? No, these aren’t luxury watches. Are these some fairly priced customisable watches that are of usable, solid quality and offer great aesthetics? I’d definitely say so. You can get something that looks like a vintage watch, without some of the upkeep issues concerned with those; which is what puts a lot of people off, including me.
As I’d consider them sort of a fashion watch, I’d love to see these priced a bit lower, I think they would be really competitive if they were priced at about £120 - £150; especially due to the lack of strong water resistance and sapphire glass. There is strong competition from the likes of Seiko, Orient and Citizen at this price range, which do offer in-house mechanical movements for many models; though they are non-chronograph models and don’t offer customisation. I think at £200; some may prefer rival offerings. That being said, I think there is enough differentiation here to give Undone a place in the market.
It’s worth mentioning, as a gift option, giving the recipient the ability to literally make the watch look exactly how they want is a great idea.
So, that’s my overall thoughts on these watches. I do quite like them, though I do feel I’m essentially their exact target market. I think if you ordered one of these you really wouldn’t have any buyer’s remorse.
