Why I Wanted Vannin’s First Watch to Be a Field Watch

Why Vannin’s first watch had to be a field watch — from GADA versatility and 38mm proportions to the Manx details behind a watch designed on the Isle of Man.

From the Journal

Designing the first Vannin on the Isle of Man

I’ve been into watches for a long time.

Long enough that, like most collectors, I’ve gone through different phases. Divers, chronographs, dress watches, vintage pieces, modern watches, watches I thought I needed and watches I bought simply because I liked them.

Why a field watch?

Field watches have always made sense to me.

They were designed to do a job. They needed to be easy to read, tough enough to use and simple enough that nothing got in the way.

That basic idea still works today.

I didn’t want to just put our name on somebody else’s watch

This was the bit that mattered to me.

There are plenty of perfectly good catalogue cases and off-the-shelf designs available. It would have been much easier to pick one, put Vannin on the dial and get on with it.

But that wasn’t why I wanted to start Vannin.

Getting the size right

I’ve owned watches at just about every size over the years, and I knew quite early on that I didn’t want this to be a big watch.

We settled on 38mm.

For me, that just feels right for this sort of watch.