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Zodiac’s Rare Cocktail of Tangible History, Classic Aesthetic, and Progress.

There is no shortage of brands producing modern watches with a vintage-inspired aesthetic these days, but if there’s anything our time in this business has taught us, it’s that you always need to look closer. After all, the most intoxicating thing for many horology enthusiasts isn’t how a piece wears on the wrist, it isn’t how it looks in a watch box, it isn’t the curb appeal a watch has to the layman, and it isn’t even the movement beating away within the case.

No, it’s the history and heritage a watch carries within it, and it’s the spirit of innovation these little wonders were born of – a spirit that is tangible in every element of the most iconic watches. When it comes to brands making watches for today’s world, but that embody an important, tangible history and a classic aesthetic, few can match Zodiac’s cocktail of heritage and progress.

When we decided to make our first foray into retailing modern watches, we knew we had to find brands that truly moved us as vintage watch obsessives. Only brands that had more to offer than just a cool visual and utility would do. We wanted to work exclusively with brands that felt the same way about honoring their past that we did as vintage enthusiasts, and Zodiac’s name quickly hit the top of our list because they walk that talk so brilliantly.

Both our CEO, Cameron Barr, and our Chief of Operations, Tyler Vanes, have avidly collected vintage Zodiac watches over-the-years, and both have owned and loved modern Zodiac divers. So it is from firsthand experience that we believe that Zodiac’s heritage-inspired modern watches are nearly impossible to beat when it comes to usability, aesthetics, and historical relevance. And as a company that ultimately seeks to make watch collecting accessible for the many, Zodiac’s bang-for-the-buck is downright incredible. 

Zodiac’s history in the sports watch world is truly remarkable. This is a brand that was considered a direct competitor and peer of Rolex and Blancpain and was legitimately one of the first on-the-scene when the sports watch category was being defined in the early 1950s. In fact, Zodiac’s iconic Sea Wolf diver actually predated the release of Rolex’s Submariner in the ‘50s! However, Zodiac sought to create professional grade watches that the enthusiast and sportsman could enjoy, and it was that sense of recreation that helped the brand craft its signature fusion of fun, colorful aesthetics with professional-grade utility. It’s something easily seen in their core offerings, which includes several Sea Wolf models that take direct visual inspiration from those early divers, but gracefully bias their functionality and aesthetic towards modernity with larger case sizes and more robust materials. 

While Zodiac’s second act has seen the brand do right by its heritage and dig deeper into that history, the team responsible for this line’s renaissance has also continued to apply the brilliant combination of fun and utility to new products that have nearly no direct peer at their price point in today’s market. One such standout model that embodies this is their professional-grade divers, which include the limited edition titanium Super Sea Wolf Pro-Diver (ref. ZO3550), a watch made for the pro, but with a playful aesthetic that makes it ideal for casual daily wear. We also adore the limited edition GMT-variant of the Sea Wolf, a watch that’s directly based on the design of the original Super Sea Wolfs, but boasts an updated Swiss-made Soprod C125 automatic movement and a traditional universal Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) tracker paired with a world time outer ring and red rotating bezel denoting 24 global cities allowing you to track two time zones at the same time. It’s a highly-functional, extremely accurate watch that is housed in a design that oozes classic simplicity – and it costs less than a proper trip to half the cities listed on its bezel. For our money, Zodiac is in a class of its own and we couldn’t be prouder to carry their line in our shop.

 

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