Oscar Waldan, the namesake behind Waldan Watches, was a Polish watchmaker trained by a man named Manek, a fellow prisoner at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp during WWII. Oscar, in between apprenticing for Manek, endured unthinkable conditions and torture under the Nazis, until liberated, when he fled to Switzerland. While there, he furthered his passion for watchmaking and maintenance, and formulated a plan to relocate to …
To attempt understanding the demands on a watchmaker requires looking at the scale of a watch and imagining how many components could possibly be inside—and how those technical attributes inform the design of the timepiece. Now, imagine holding the title of master watchmaker (or equivalent) across three very different brands at the exact same time. That’s what Pim Koeslag does for the classic maison Frederique …
It’s been six years since Shinola launched the Runwell—a debut, flagship wristwatch that sought to carry the torch for a new wave of Detroit watchmaking. This week, the brand has released the Runwell Automatic and it’s a technical and design-driven development. The watch (assembled in Detroit) still features the original, beloved silhouette, but inside there’s a Swiss Sellita SW200-1 movement. In addition to the polished …
