New clock by Phil Toledano and Alfred Chan is inspired by architecture

Phil Toledano, a New York-based artist better known in the watch community by his Instagram handle @misterenthusiast, and Alfred Chan, a Hong Kong-based watch designer, have never met in person, although they have met in the last three years designed a clock together. “This is the most modern 21st century company you can imagine,” Toledano says with a laugh. The duo first met on Instagram and bonded over their shared passion for watches and brutalist architecture. In 2021, they began brainstorming a watch, which eventually resulted in the B/1 by Toledano + Chan in 904 stainless steel.

They felt the market was missing something architectural and sculptural, and it turned out they were just one step ahead of the current zeitgeist, which favored design-led vintage pieces. You'll notice that the watch's case is inspired by the shape of the windows of Marcel Breuer's iconic brutalist building at 945 Madison, the former home of the Whitney Museum, and Rolex's King Midas. In addition, the bracelet takes up the style of the 70s, in which the bracelet and case follow a consistent design language. “We were really in love with integrated watches,” says Toledano Robb report. “But there are two types of integration wristwatches: there are watches that only have a bracelet integrated, and there are watches that have what we call a continuous concept design. The design of the watch head is also continued in the bracelet. The whole thing is a kind of sculptural idea. And that was our goal for our watch: to realize this continuous concept design.”

The case and bracelet are not the only interesting details of the piece. The crown is on the left side, a so-called “Destro” watch, which is typical for left-handers (destroy means correctly in Italian, the side you're likely to wear it on) – you may remember Rolex's 2022 “Destro” GMT-Master II as a better-known example of this type of timepiece. It also features a lovely lapis lazuli dial – stone dials have become a sought-after design, featuring prominently in watches from the 1970s. And at 33.5mm with a beveled thickness of 10.40 to 9.10mm (due to the angled case shape) and 32mm diameter lugs, it's slightly larger than other rectangular models from other brands like Cartier. It is equipped with a Swiss-made Sellita SW100 automatic movement and has a power reserve of 42 hours.

It's a more considered piece for a duo that never really had a business plan. Toledano says they never set out to make a watch. Instead, it manifested itself from conversations and mutual design preferences. “I was really excited about my Patek [Philippe] ’70s stuff,” he says. “And we ended up creating a watch design without thinking about how much it would cost, which I don't think is really the way people work [laughs]. But most of all, we just wanted to do something that we both really, really loved.”

Since only 175 of these were made at a retail price of $4,000, you can expect these won't last long. If you're interested, be ready to snap up on May 17th when the watches go on sale at Toledano & Chan and Hodinkee.