My wrist has hosted calculators, step counters, and at least one watch that tried to guess my mood and called me “tired” for three months straight. Today it graduates to wearable art, as it is called, courtesy of D1 MILANO’s new trio: Sketch Polychrono, Camo, and Fragment. Yes, Fragment—like a tasteful crack in a museum sculpture, but make it wrist-size and socially acceptable.
Sketch Polychrono is the doodler’s daydream. Think skeletonized dial that looks like a designer penciled it in during a meeting that definitely could’ve been an email. Under the art-school swagger beats a dependable quartz heart (TMI VD53C), wrapped in a 40.5 mm (about 1.6 in) polycarbonate case that’s 11.5 mm thick (around 0.45 in), with 5 ATM water resistance (50 m/164 ft). It’s basically your notebook doodle graduating into horology. And hey, it kind of reminds me of the Giorgio Martino VIENKA 2D Sketch Wristwatch we featured previously—only this time, you don’t need to be an avant-garde artist to pull it off. The Sketch Chrono is available in a choice of black or white colorways.
Camo says “blend in” while doing the opposite. The fractal-ish pattern runs across the dial, case, and bracelet like nature’s algorithm had a fashion moment. Still 40.5 mm wide, but a slimmer 8.6 mm thick (about 0.34 in). Inside: a Japanese quartz TMI VJ21 that minds the minutes while the visuals steal the show. The Camo comes in two flavors: Forest and Urban.
Fragment is the poet of the bunch. The dial carries sculpted fissures and tonal layers, like a monochrome memory you can wear. Same 40.5 mm footprint and 8.6 mm thickness, same quartz VJ21, same everyday-proof 5 ATM. Imperfect in the best possible way. The Fragment is presented in Grey (but it is really more like off-white). It has a sibling in black, fancily called Crushed. The designs of the two are identical, right down to the cracks. Speaking of the cracks on the dial face… it somehow looks vaguely familiar… oh, right, that’s kind of artist Daniel Arsham’s thing. He applied the jarring fissures to his arts, as well as on the Hot Wheels collab die-cast cars.
Oh, did we also mention that it has a brand new packaging that might make you keep the box on display? Very, very cool box.
The D1 Milano Sketch Polychrono goes for US$295, the Camo retails for US$170, and the Fragment/Crushed also sells for US$170. If anyone’s interested, the Sketch has a non-chrono version, called Sketch Polycarbon, selling for US$195.
Images: D1 Milano.
