Credits: Article and images by Troy Barmore @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/toledano-chan-b1/
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.
Credits: Article and images by Troy Barmore @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/toledano-chan-b1/
