Studio Underd0g Unveils their Second Collection, a Contemporary Take on the Field Watch (with Plenty of Lume)

Studio Underd0g has been charming watch enthusiasts with their colorful chronographs for the last few years, and at long last they’ve announced their follow up effort. This is a somewhat tall order – their chronos were hits in the collector community like few other watches can claim to be, largely a result of their total originality and the brand’s commitment to fully exploring their own design language. Their “Watermelon” chronograph is perhaps their most well known watch, but they’ve released many other equally colorful and exciting chronos, most of which are similarly inspired by the vivid colors of our favorite foods. “Mint Chocolate Chip” and “Strawberries and Cream” immediately come to mind, but their chronograph has been available in a rainbow of appetizing colors since its inception. With their new collection, Studio Underd0g is approaching color in a different way, and via a different platform, that’s simultaneously a little more traditional and also, in some ways, more transgressive. 

The 02Series Field Collection from Studio Underd0g is their take on a classic field watch, with the hypothetical design brief being that the British Ministry of Defense has asked Studio Underd0g to create a reliable watch for the armed forces fighting in World War II. This, of course, is a familiar idea, and it’s a strange coincidence that this seems to be the season of contemporary small brands providing their own unique twist on something that’s existed for nearly a century. But the field watch remains a compelling blank canvas, one that allows for plenty of creative vision if a brand really wants to try something new, and Studio Underd0g is leaning into what they do best here, while still showing the type of restraint that makes a field watch a field watch. 

While their chronographs announce their idiosyncrasies from a distance, the new field watches are a bit more under the radar. With this collection, it’s all in the lume, and the details of the dial construction more specifically. The base dials of these watches feature seven layers of custom Super-LumiNova, with a 1mm thick sapphire disc (with printed Arabic numerals, a minute track, and all of the branding) mounted on top via a pair of visible pins. The effect, in the daylight, is that all of the printed elements on the sapphire disc appear to float above the dial, casting shadows on the lume layer below. When it’s dark, the printed elements are lit by the lume from behind. 

At launch, Studio Underd0g is offering their field watch in a range of color options that show off this effect in different ways. The most adventurous is the “Pink Lem0nade” colorway, which has a gradient dial moving from pink to yellow, which appears to mix multiple lume colors together to achieve its effect. The “Steffany Blue” dial is Studio Underd0g’s take on the Tiffany blue dial craze, and the “Full Mo0n” is the most lume forward of the bunch, with a dial that appears to be off-white but, of course, takes on a very different character when fully charged. The “Midnight” watch is the only one to take a different approach, with a black base dial and lumed printed elements in that sapphire disc. It’s effectively the inverse of the other watches in the collection.

In keeping with the idea of a “traditinal” field watch, the 02Series watches measure a conservative 37mm in diameter and are just 9.8mm tall (excluding the sapphire crystal). They run on the manually wound Sellita SW210-1, and are water resistant to 100 meters. 

In terms of availability, a pre-order window opens on November 1 for a period of nine hours. All orders placed during that window are guaranteed to be filled, with the first 500 watches ready to be delivered before Christmas of this year. Delivery timeframes for additional watches sold during the pre-order window will be determined based on the total quantity of orders received. The retail price is $900.

We’ll have hands-on impressions of the new Studio Underd0g field watches soon. In the meantime, be sure to check out their website for additional information.