New Nomos "At Work" Collection is pretty awesome
Oct 18, 2017 0:25:11 GMT -6
aerome and carl like this
Post by timelessluxwatches on Oct 18, 2017 0:25:11 GMT -6
Here's my little editorial on the new Nomoses, which hopefully offers some organization and clarity to the increasingly confusing Nomos lineup. Basically, all At Works are Neomatiks, but not all Neomatiks are at At Works, and all At Works are 38.5mm, although they're named 39, except for the Tetra At Work, which is 33x33, and each line gets three new At Work versions, except for when they get four. Simple, right? Hopefully this will help:
Nomos’ New At Work Series
Nomos just released their new At Work collection, and in my opinion, they really knocked it out of the park. This is a collection that is unique insofar as it appeals to both Nomos fans that have been around for years, like myself, and the new crowd that is just now discovering Nomos, perhaps introduced to the brand by watches like the Metro.
The “At Work” series is aimed at men, but while the name conjures, to me at least, a sort of masculine ideal of construction workers or lumberjacks, it’s actually aimed at the white collar professional. If you’ll permit me to editorialize for a moment, I think Nomos missed the mark slightly with the overtly masculine descriptions of the watches, not because they wouldn’t be great for men, but I see no reason why most women wouldn’t like these either. With the exception of the Tetra, which necessitates a unique size, all of the At Work series, so far anyway, are 38.5mm (despite their names being 39, which I suppose rolls off the tongue better). That is a great size for men, and a size I ordinarily wear as an average sized man, but I know plenty of women that wear watches in that size. So ladies, don’t let these descriptions put you off to the At Work line, at least if you’re normally okay with 38-40mm watches.
Setting that aside, what precisely is the At Work collection? Is it a collection at all? Well, I’d almost describe it as a meta-collection, not unlike their Neomatik line (and these are also all Neomatiks, if you weren’t sufficiently confused). By that I mean that At Work crosses over the boundaries of the more conventional lines, like Orion, Tangente and Orion. We’ll go over all of the new models, but they do share a lot in common. All At Work models feature Nomos’ amazing DUW 3001 ultra-thin automatic, a real triumph of manufacturing for this relatively young German brand.
Like I mentioned earlier, all except for the Tetra feature 38.5mm cases. The Tetra, being a square watch, would be enormous with that dimension, so they’re 33mm instead. Each of the involved lines, Orion, Tangente, Metro and Tetra receive three versions each, a more traditional silver/white Nomos dial, a very cool brushed gray/silver dial, and a midnight blue version. The exceptions would be the Metro and Orion, which apparently earned themselves an extra-dressy 4th version. To keep things simple, I’ll post all of the basic designs together as a group and then discuss them. Click on any of the photos to learn more about that particular watch.
Nomos calls these dials the “Silvercut” models. Let’s kick it off with the Nomos, the Tangente. This combination of blued hands, a red seconds hand, and that ultra-cool brushed dial looks amazing. I think this is one of the best looking watches Nomos has ever made. These dials do give the watch an almost tool-watch quality–don’t get me wrong, they’re not tool watches, but I feel like this dial could be incorporated into a more conventional utilitarian watch if Nomos ever wanted to. The Orion, conversely, in its characteristically Orion fashion, tones things down a bit and goes with steel hands. In a real sense, it’s the dressiest of the three, yet without the chromatic flourishes of the other two, it also appears to be the most serious. Next we look at the new darling of the brand, the Metro. It too lacks the blued hands, but it compensates with large red hour markers that are nicely symmetrical when incorporating the red seconds hand. The Tetra, in this instance, is almost a square facsimile of the Tangente, sans some minor touches like that khaki 6:00 marker.
Next we look at their Midnight Blue options, all of which, sans the Tetra, feature striking red hands, which has an oddly familiar feel to it, almost as if we’d seen something like that before. Jokes aside, these look terrific, and the red seconds hand seems to have a touch more orange than our versions. The Tetra is clearly the most playful of the group, with what appears to be subtle seafoam accents around the perimeter. The Tangente and Metro are the all-business models here, while the Orion lets loose a little with a red 6:00 marker and khaki accents.
If you’re a Nomos traditionalist you’re not left out in the cold either. Once again, the Tetra is allowed to have a little more fun in terms of its color scheme, but the Tangente, Orion and Metro are very close to their ancestral models. If anything, the Metro is even a little more toned down than the original. I believe that these dials are slightly different than their predecessors, however. Looking closely I can detect a pleasant graininess, not too dissimilar to the old Tangente Sport that we’re so fond of here, albeit these models are quite a bit lighter.
Finally, we look at the outliers, the dressiest of the At Work collection by far. The Orion resumes its extreme Germanic austerity found elsewhere in the collection, just with the updated size and movement. The Metro, conversely, is not toned down at all, thanks to a surprisingly gorgeous gold case and hands.
As I mentioned earlier, I think Nomos really got it right with this collection. I’m particularly enamored by the brushed dials and the more traditional interpretations. If I could have any here, it’d be either the Tangente with the brushed dial, the Tangente with the “classic” dial, or, surprisingly for me as I rarely like gold watches for my own collection, the new gold Metro. Just to reiterate, to learn more about any of these models, simply click their picture and you’ll see everything there is to know about it, including the price and additional photos.
