Spring Sprang Sprung 2023 – our picks for Best in Show

The Deployant Team attended the Second Chapter of Spring Sprang Sprung (SPRG), an independent watch fair that is created by Sugiharto Kusumadi of Red Army Watches and Yong Keong Lim of Feynman Timekeepers. We pick our favourite watches from the event.

It is conceptualised as a fun, casual, welcoming and inclusive platform for independent watch brand owners and watch enthusiasts alike to get together in person to share their passions, ideas, discussions and more. In this chapter, there were more than 35 micro and independent brands who participated.

Spring Sprang Sprung 2023 – our picks for Best in Show

Spring Sprang Sprung logo courtesy of Spring Sprang Sprung

In this chapter of Spring Sprang Sprung, Deployant’s Editor in Chief, Peter and I attended the event on Saturday where the turnout for the event was amazing! During our time there, we had the pleasure of interacting with the respective watchmakers, strap makers, friends of Deployant and readers! In the midst of all the interactions, we were throughly blown away by the array of watches that we had a hard time sifting out the top 6.

Here are our Best of Show top 6 watches, for convenience in alphabetical order by brand:

Aision Design NGIZED – Layer-0 Suspended Dial

AISION DESIGN was founded more than 4 years ago. The brand now has two product lines with completely different styles for its watches. One line is suitable for daily wear, while the other embraces the unconstrained ideas that the designer loves. The NGIZED is a design company that collaborated with Aision to design the Layer-0 Suspended Dial. The Layer-0 features a sapphire box crystal that enables the wearer to see the dial perfectly and admiring the suspending hands.

Behind the dial, the watch is powered by Miyota’s premium 9039 movement. It is a workhorse movement that would accompany the owner of the watch for many years to come with enough due care, it is also a movement where many local watchmakers could work on without much hassle.

Atowak Tarantula

Atowak was established a little more than a decade ago helping microbrands to create watches. With years of experience under their belt helping other microbrands, they eventually launched their first wandering hour timepiece 3 years ago. That made Atowak a brand that caught the watch industry’s attention as it made such a design more accessible to watch enthusiast and collectors.

The Atowak Tarantula is a 3 arms wandering hour time piece. The aluminium and carbon fibre arms is powered by a modified Miyota 9039 movement that is virtually bulletproof and arguably accurate. The case that is protecting the 3 beautiful arms and the movement is the very standard 316L steel. For the dreamers and watch enthusiast who aspire to own a certain very expensive independent watch brand that does a similar watch but like me restrained by the reality of life, Atowak is certainly the more assessable option to choose from.

Behrens Ultra-Ligh 20G

Behrens is a watch brand that is founded in 2012, it was one of the pioneer in the microbrand scene that features modules that have interesting ways to tell time but it was all built on common movements such as the Miyota 9039 and Sellita SW200. Today, they are gradually moving to inhouse movements and building watches that could even rival watches such as the Richard Mille, Urwek and MB&F for a fraction of the price.

Enter one of their latest creation the Behrens Ultra-Ligh 20G, just like the name suggest, the watch weighs just 20 grams for just the case itself. The 20G consist of their inhouse manual winding movement that is protected by the gorgeously milled titanium case. What’s the most amazing part of this all? The watch is priced at a modest USD 7,600. All in all, it is definitely a watch that punch way above it’s price point while being able to rub shoulders with those that claims to be the “world lightest watch”.

Estrowerk Estro One

Estrowerk is a brand that is established in year 2123, travelling through time and creating wristwatches along the way. Estrowerk’s mission statement: To go back in time and create timepieces, that would inspire the future generations to keep wrist-watches alive for the decades to come.

The futuristic team of Estrowerk was introduced to the Deployant team by Terence Chan who we featured recently. The brand’s first collection is the Estro One, a regulator style dial layout watch that is limited to 100 pieces per variant. The watch is powered by the Miyota 82S7 movement while being cased in the 316L steel case with an integrated bracelet.

The Estrowerk team has kindly loaned an Estro One and we will be publishing the hands on review very soon. So far, the watch has certainly caught the attention of my friends when I wore it for “Week on the Wrist” article that will be coming up! Stay tuned.

Oris ProPilot X Kermit Edition

Oris remains one of the few independent companies in the Swiss watch industry and continues to forge its own path, striving for what it believes in — sustainable, high functioning, high quality watches that stand the test of time. 

In this article for SRPG 2023, we feature one of the most talked about watch that debuted in Watches and Wonders 2023, the Oris ProPilot X Kermit Edition. Yes, the watch still caught the eye of the Deployant team and we also understand that it is perpetually sold out in Singapore but good news is that the wait is usually “just” between 6-9 Months.

The ProPilot is powered by Oris’ inhouse 400 caliber movement with an impressive 120 hours of power reserve (the power reserve certainly fulfills our pet peeve of a weekend proof movement) and encased in a satin titanium case and bracelet. Frankly, the Oris ProPilot X Kermit never fails to put a smile on the Deployant team’s face every time we see it.

Vayth V2

Vayth is an Indonesian watch brand that was founded by Yudian who is a watch enthusiast. From our understanding, they are collectors of Urwek and De Bethune prior to being a founder of a watch brand. Vayth is the first brand that the Deployant team have visited during SPRG and was blown away by the make of the watch. It is so well made and feeling so solid that we were surprised when Yudian told us the price of the watch. Currently retailing around USD 1800, it makes Vayth a great bargin for a watch of this caliber.

The movement that powers Vayth V2 is the Swiss Made Selita SW200 movement with many different custom components thats enables the watch to feature the wandering hour. The watch case is available in various materials and finishings that we are certain there is one that will tickle your fancy.

Interestingly the Vayth V2 is so impressive that one of the team members at Deployant was seriously considering to get one. Do watch this space where we will be getting a loaner from Vayth to do a hands on review!

Special Mention

We were introduced to Tristan Ho, a hobbyist introduced to us by a friend of Deployant (shoutout to Wanyu). Tristan had created and polished his watch just a week before SPRG. Despite his hectic work schedule as a Bio-Medical Researcher, he managed to create the movement using a Unitas movement as a base, but by cutting the bridges with hand using a file. He then gold plated the movement and finished it with a grained structure and high polished anglage.

Tristan has been modifying Japanese watches like Seiko before, and this piece is his first serious attempt at finishing a movement. We found it to be very impressive as the level of craftsmanship is very high! We are certainly looking forward more from him and looking forward to feature him in the future.

Conclusion

What an event! There were so many watches that we did not feature on our post but were amazing too! Certainly looking forward to the next chapter of the Spring Sprang Sprung. Did you visit the fair? If so, what were your top picks?