“And now,” as they used to say on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, “for something completely different.”
I handle an absurd number of watches each year. Most fit into familiar themes. Others eschew traditional design models and follow a singular vision. Brand owners Shaheen and Noradia Miller certainly took the second path with their debut watch, the Northern Star Sentinel ($649).
The Sentinel is a daring statement piece of a watch, brimming with brightly polished accents and shimmering surfaces. They offer it with black, white, and gunmetal dials, but I requested the wildest of the bunch, the Icy Sentinel, with an aqua dial, gold hands and markers, and a white leather strap. I’ll confess, an online photo of this watch would be unlikely to catch my interest, but when I encountered it in real life, I could not resist picking it up for a closer look.
According to the website, the watch measures 40.5mm wide, which might make you think the Sentinel is a mid-sized watch, but you would be wrong. The listed width is from one flat side to another, but it should be measured point-to-point in this orientation. That makes it a 44mm case, excluding the crown. With a 47mm length and a 10.8mm overall thickness, it wears large on my smallish 6.75″ wrist.
Flat sides accentuate the watch’s thickness, so while the polished lug tips and case chamfers soften the shape, the overall impression is heft. This is further amplified by the oversized crown, which represents one the Sentinel’s missteps.
There is nothing wrong with the crown itself. I like the spiral texturing and screw-down functionality; however, it would be more at home on a tool watch than a watch with the Sentinel’s fancier face. Moreover, there is no need for a screw-down crown on a watch rated for 50m water resistance. I would have preferred a smaller, polished, push-pull crown that better fit the Sentinel’s theme.
That said, this case is quite cool. To my mind, hexagons scream “1970s” and in the best possible ways, like the interior of the Lamborghini Marzal. Contrasting swaths of linear brushing and mirror polishing create a delightful movement that flows right into the dial via a reflective rehaut.
Moving on to the dial, you are greeted with a glorious riot of reflections under that anti-reflective sapphire crystal. The polished rehaut, faceted gold baton hands and markers, and sunburst brushing on the inner and outer surfaces would be enough for most watches, but not this one. Northern Star also gives us a Mother-of-Pearl ring marked with printed Roman numerals and set with synthetic Moissenite gems. What’s that? You want more? Ok, how about an engraved and polished index with the band name?
Clearly, there is a lot going on here, and you can’t even appreciate it all in the daytime. Turn out the lights, and you’ll discover the Roman numerals are lumed with Super-LumiNova, as are the hands, the pips on the markers, and the outline of that gold 12.
There are cool ideas; I’m just not sure we needed all of them on the dial at once. That said, the gemstones and printed numbers on the Mother-of-Pearl are just subtle accents under most lighting conditions. The polished index is the least successful element, as the hash marks are often obscured by reflection, and they are set too far inside the dial to be of much use.
Northern Star chose a Miyota 90S5 automatic for the Sentinel, a premium automatic with 24 jewels, 28.8k bph, and a power reserve of over 42 hours. You can check out its custom rotor through the sapphire exhibition window.
On the Sentinel’s thick leather strap, we find what I suspect will be its most polarizing feature: the crown plate. I applaud the out-of-the-box thinking and its clean, dual-finished execution, but no, this is not for me. It would be a bridge too far on any watch, and it looks wildly excessive on the already busy Sentinel. Of course, you could just swap the strap or choose Norther Star’s beads-of-rice bracelet as a no-cost option. I’d suggest the bracelet. I didn’t sample one, but I think it would be a good pairing with the head.
The Northern Star Sentinel is very much a freshman effort that displays both the negative and positive connotations of that term. The negative? I’d say the watch shows some of the telltale signs of a young microbrand’s inexperience. For example, the brand’s logo looks homespun, which cuts against the Sentinel’s fashionable aspirations. Also, the watch contains every design idea its designers could dream up, and that is going to be a bit too much for many potential customers. The hexagonal case, multi-finish dial, gemstones, and strap plate are a lot to pack into a single model.
The positive? Well, that same exuberance I just called out as a negative also happens to be Northern Star’s greatest asset. This is not a watch made by someone who was looking to play it safe. It is a passionate explosion of ideas, each of which is nicely executed. I salute the fact that the Millers have created the watch of their dreams, even if this first model is not the watch of mine. I love that they chose an uncommon shape; the flash and sparkle of that dial grabbed my eye, and its intricate details drew me in.
The Icy Sentinel is a fun piece, but I’m more interested in what Northern Star’s second model will be like. Maybe it will be more restrained, smaller, and with fewer competing design elements. Or perhaps it will be even bolder, showcasing new and exotic ideas. Either way, I’ll be watching.
