What is a microbrand? 

I think about this a lot, never more than in the days and weeks after a Windup, and particularly the days and weeks following the New York City version of our fair, which is the largest and most diverse in terms of the types of brands represented. We often hear people describe Windup as “the microbrand show” or something similar. Not in a pejorative way, necessarily, but as a way to distinguish it from an event like WatchTime (which is more focused on traditional luxury brands) or IndiesNYC (which, yup, is focused on “indies,” another hard to define term when you step back and actually try). 

I don’t have an answer for what a “microbrand” actually is. Defining it gets more complicated when you consider all of the other small niches that pop up in the space. Terms like “micro-indie” and “challenger brand” have been thrown around a lot in the last few years, seemingly as an attempt to subvert a negative connotation with the microbrand moniker. But these terms have their own issues. Micro-indie implies, at least in how this publication has used it, that an element of the watch has some handmade craft or traditional watchmaking techniques behind it, but maybe uses a shortcut (like a case made in China, or an off-the-shelf movement) to save money. Not all brands and makers want to be seen as making compromises, even though essentially everyone short of, I dunno, Roger W. Smith and Philippe Dufour are making something about the process a little bit easier on themselves. 

Challenger brand is a term with some potential, but it implies, I think, that a brand desires growth in a way I’m not sure all do. Who is the micro or indie brand “challenging” exactly, and for what? I don’t think most of these brands, even the most ambitious and successful, actually hope to compete directly with the largest conglomerate owned watch brands. They aspire, I think, to be an alternative, not to overtake or replace.

Microbrand has always been a label that’s somewhat elastic, both in how it’s applied and how it’s perceived and metabolized by the watch community. No doubt that when you use or hear the term, it conjures something. Depending on when you entered the hobby, or what your initial experiences with a microbrand were like, it might imply a particular design aesthetic or level of workmanship. 

To me, what the microbrand label has come to represent more than anything is the connective tissue of the community itself. That’s the side effect of a catch-all term – it wraps everything into one group. Overall, I think that’s a positive for the watch space in the sense that so much of the success any one brand experiences hinges on the entire market rising. Watch collectors interested in microbrands, it seems, want variety and breadth of choice. One microbrand leads to another, and another. To be interested in one microbrand doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be interested in another, but it does mean you have a certain level of curiosity, and perhaps a predisposition to discovering and embracing a small maker. When a brand embraces the label of a microbrand, they are identifying with so many others, entering an enthusiast community, tacitly acknowledging we’re all in this together. 

And that’s why, I admit, it bothers me a little when I see a brand actively reject the “micro” designation. I mean, I get it – no one wants to feel small. But a look around the Windup fair and similar events reveals an enormous, and inclusive, community that is greater than the sum of its parts. There was a time when “microbrand” was often used dismissively, to minimize the significance of a brand, a watch, or the community itself. That attitude still certainly exists in small pockets here and there, but it’s not a mainstream view. When the term is used today, I almost always hear it in a positive context, and as a way of tying a brand or a watch to the people who take part in the hobby.

What’s most interesting to me is that the terminology we use to describe these brands – micro, indie, or something else – no longer really has much to do with how the brand actually operates as a business. A decade ago, the use of the term microbrand likely would have you thinking of a very specific type of small watch brand, operating on a small scale, run by a single person (or maybe two or three), using Kickstarter or other crowdfunding platforms. Today, microbrands cover a huge range of price points, production methods, and sometimes incorporate traditional and increasingly ambitious watchmaking craft. The label means a lot more culturally than it does in describing a business, not that it was ever particularly sufficient for that anyway. Paradoxically, as this language becomes less useful to articulate how a brand actually operates, it becomes more meaningful in how it describes the communities that take part in the hobby.

The conversation then, about what it means to be a microbrand, isn’t really about size, or the number of watches being produced. And it’s not even really about price, although certainly once you start hitting a price point where most would consider a watch a luxury purchase, the term begins to lose some utility. What it’s actually about is an ethos, and identifying yourself with a movement and a culture. Maybe it’s the Windup hangover talking, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the microbrand boom has been one of the most consequential and beneficial periods in our hobby in a generation. Why wouldn’t a brand want to be a part of that?