Exclusive: a first look at the new Marloe Daytimer watch
Marloe Watch Company has just announced a new watch line called the Daytimer Collection. Expected to launch in June 2024, Marloe gave T3 an exclusive look at its four versions of the new Daytimer watch, and talked us through the idea behind the latest collection.
The independent British watch manufacturer, Marloe is best known for its sports-chic mechanical watches. T3 has already tried its fair share of Marloe watches, including the Marloe Astro Eagle and the Marloe Day GMT, so when we heard that Marloe was unveiling a new collection, we had to try and get an exclusive sneak peek.
The new Marloe Daytimer has been two years in the making and resulted in ‘a sea-change’ in the brand’s approach to watch design. In conversation about the Marloe Daytimer, Gordon Fraser, co-founder of Marloe, said that “the brief was simply to design a watch that I wanted to wear… and to create a watch that people will want to wear every day.”
And that’s exactly what Marloe has done. A new time and date watch from Marloe, the Daytimer comes in four different versions, each of which have subtle design touches that reveal themselves over time. As Fraser explains, “on the face of it the Daytimer looks like a formal watch, with its mirror polished case and simple dial design, the more you let the design soak in, the more it feels like a casual, everyday watch.”
The four editions of the Marloe Daytimer are called Madainn, Gealach, Tableau and Black Edition. All versions come in a minimalist 41mm case with a lightly patterned dial that showcases a mixture of numbers and hour markers. A small seconds and date sits at the six o’clock position and the rounded skeletonised hour and minute hands match the colour of the version you choose.
Depending on your style preferences, the Madainn and Black Edition versions of the Marloe Daytimer are monochromatic and have paper-like graining on the dial. The former has a brass chamfer that was inspired by the sun rising over snow-covered hills. It gives the watch a nice polish and extra bit of colour to the white dial, and matches nicely with its brown leather strap.
The Black Edition of the Marloe Daytimer has slightly more colour than the Madainn. Against its black dial, the bezel, seconds counter and hands have a subtle pastel-like yellow colour and the words ‘Black Edition’ sit just above the date window.
The Gealach and Tableau are the more expressive editions of the Marloe Daytimer, with their black honeycomb textured dials. The Gealach has a white seconds counter and hints of orange on the bezel, hour markers and hands, whereas the Tableau has pops of yellow.
The Tableau takes inspiration from Piet Mondrian, a pioneer of abstract art from the early 20th century. Its colour-matched accents using primary colours on the geometric design gives a nod to Mondrain’s most recognisable pieces, called the Tableau I, hence the name! The colours in question are white for the hours, yellow for the minutes and red for the seconds which is playfully displayed on the dial.
When asked about the process of making the new Marloe Daytimer, Fraser said the joy of it was getting back down to what first excited him about watches: “simplicity, broad dials and unobtrusive, subtle design, functionality and ergonomics and the beauty of a manual-winding Swiss mechanical movement.”
Speaking of the movement, it can be seen through the clear caseback in all its glory. The wheels, cogs, bolts and weight is hypnotising to look at and there’s writing around the outside of the movement, which says ‘Marloe Watch Company’, ‘Daytimer’ and Marloe’s tagline, ‘Time Well Spent’.
Looking at the new Marloe Daytimer, the design is a perfect balance of practicality and style. By adding different colours and textures to the technical parts of the watch, like the seconds counter and bezel, it highlights the clever watchmaking that’s gone into the new timepieces.
The Marloe Daytimer is set to launch later in the year, but you can head over to Marloe now to take a look at its other collections.
