In life, there are moments that push us to alter our perspectives or perhaps to be made aware of the self-imposed constraints we impose on our way of viewing things. This can be macro and very significant; other times, it can be of lesser importance yet still resonate deeply. While it may seem silly to put a watch into the latter category, I was non-volitionally knocked into such a reflective state by the $985 Bremoir Eastern.
What about the watch struck me so? There are several answers to that, but the overarching one is that I am, rather unoriginally, a fan largely of robust tool watches. I’ve always appreciated dressier watches as design objects, but as I’ve become an irrational horological obsessive, the center of my universe has coalesced around pieces intended to take a beating with the purposeful looks to match. Neither of the prior two sentences could reasonably be ascribed to the Eastern. It is constructed to a standard that could handle a direct impact, but such a happening isn’t likely what Patrick Bremer had in mind when he designed this watch.
With 50m of water resistance and a case design reminiscent of a classic skin diver fed through a Streamline Moderne retrofuturism filter, the Eastern has the foundation of a tool watch, but the face-forward presentation of the watch is pure, tastefully-gilded luxury. It is this angle that caused me, quite literally, to pause and think on multiple occasions. To think about what I want a watch to do, what I need it to do, and what might be functionally superfluous but soulfully enriching. I have a bias in associating robustness with value; the more physically capable a watch, the more it can acceptably carry a higher price tag, in my view. The Eastern challenged that notion and forced me to accept that design and the execution of details, are also worth paying for.
The first example of where the Eastern’s design execution shines is in the aforementioned case: it might be the most comfortable watch I’ve ever worn. A bit hyperbolic, but not far, if at all, from the truth. Dimensionally, it rings in at 39mm x 48.5mm x 10.7mm, all relatively tidy figures. There are three aspects of the watch’s design, beyond those measurements, that make it wear so comfortably. The first is the curved underside of the case – it isn’t curved just along one plane but across several, making the caseback conform exceptionally to the wrist. The second element is the positioning of the spring bar mounting holes, which are relatively high on the lugs. On some watches, this can make things uncomfortable, but paired with the downturn and shortness of the lugs, the lug hole placement allows what is affixed to those mounting points to drape beautifully. The third comfort-enabling element is what is affixed to those mounting points: a strap that is among the best leather straps I’ve encountered, certainly on anything that sniffs the Eastern’s sub-$1k price. Aside from its comfort, the underside of the strap is stamped with Bremoir’s logo, as is the stepped metal buckle. Again, details.
Within the case, the Eastern’s dial is another exemplar of Bremoir’s design chops. Beginning with the Lexington, Bremoir has advanced a design language deeply rooted in Art Deco design principles. The Lexington, which shares the Eastern’s case, launched the brand with Deco’s angular embellishments. The texture of the sectors on its dial, the outward-pointing triangular hour markings around the outer track, and the stepped bezel quickly call to mind the Chrysler Building, brand’s inspiration for the model.
In contrast, the Bremoir Eastern is much simplified, taking cues from Deco’s minimalist cousin, Streamline Moderne. Gone are the varied textures and depths on the Lexington’s sector rings, now differentiated with color alone. Depth is reserved for the hour markings, denoted with applied golden Arabic numerals at the cardinal points and stepped, round, lume-filled markers for the remaining hours. Like the hands, these elements are polished, making all the golden dial furniture eager to catch and reflect even the dimmest light. The lume application is more than bright enough for the dressier intentions of the Eastern, and I wonder if the dial event needs lume at all. Perhaps replacing the lumed elements with a brushed-gold finishing would provide similar textural differentiation and fit the theme better.
Along the perimeter of the ring upon which the golden markers are set, each hour sports a thin painted white line. These run to the dial’s edge at the cardinal markings and halfway there for the others, and help prevent the Eastern’s dial from having an excess of negative space. Extending from those outer hashes, the simplification trend continues with the smoothed bezel and the removal of the outer minutes track on the Eastern. These decisions make sense when considering the watch’s design source, L.A.’s Eastern Columbia Building, the clock face of which is also starkly minimal. These are, however, two of the main critiques I have of the overall design of the Eastern. I prefer the depth and tasteful embellishments of the Lexington’s dial and bezel. [Tip for the reader: if the critiques of a watch are as subjective as what I just noted, then the designers did an excellent job.]
The last of my triumvirate of critiques is slightly more objective and pertains to the crown, which is slightly too thin side-to-side to make for easy winding. The crown tolerance is also tight to the case in a manner that might frustrate owners who bite their nails, as it can be challenging to pull the crown out to set the time. While the crown’s narrow profile is visually in balance with the Eastern’s overall pared-back design, it requires a little more effort to get good purchase to wind up the STP 1-11 that powers the watch. Said movement is decorated with a bespoke rotor decorated in gold and black, visible through the caseback, and signed Time Worth Remembering. It is a nice touch that further illustrates the detailed consideration put into Bremoir’s designs. I’ve heard and read many complaints about these movements over the years but have not encountered trouble with them myself. The Zodiac Sea Wolf I owned ran wonderfully, and the same can be said of The Eastern, which I clocked (pun deeply intended) at +9 seconds per day. Not COSC spec, but when you don’t have a seconds track, does it matter?
Returning to subjective measures of design, I own plenty of watches (not bragging, really more of a confession), and I try to wear them all. This means that my colleagues, friends, family, and strangers in the physical and digital worlds get to see a lot of watches on my wrist. None of the watches I’ve owned and worn over the years have received as many unsolicited compliments as the Eastern did during my time with it. I don’t mean that in terms of a rate over a certain amount of time, either. The Eastern literally received more total compliments in a matter of a week than any other watch I’ve worn has received over much longer spans of ownership. Now, impressing the masses to solicit flattery isn’t the main reason I purchase watches. Still, the general population’s adoration for the Eastern suggests that Bremoir has hit on an aesthetic language that resonates with impressive breadth and depth.
My time with the Bremoir Eastern reminded me that some things require acceptance of cognitive dissonance to enjoy. This dress watch nested in a dive watch’s body, with its lack of a minute and seconds track, can’t tell me the time more precisely than at 5-minute intervals, yet it served me perfectly fine as a reference for getting through three flights. Better yet, it gave me something to look at fondly as I whiled away the time waiting for those planes to board. In my current “I work from home, and I’m too tired to go out and dress up” lifestyle, I have just about no occasion suited for a watch as pretty as the Eastern, but once I liberated myself from the need to match a watch to a categorically appropriate moment, every occasion became relevant to the Eastern’s charms.
Do not think of this as a direct comparison, given their significant price disparity, but the Eastern called to mind the Cartier Santos. Similarly irreverent, the Santos was initially designed as a tool watch for one of the most daring actions in human history: flying during the early age of human flight. Look at it in today’s far more casual design era, though, and the Santos is more of a dress watch. The Eastern, like the Santos, is a tool watch from a bygone era, when adventure and exploration were conducted in finery, with comforts. By maintaining an anachronistic design ethos, the Bremoir Eastern, like the Santos, facilitates a nonconformist levity, an, “I keep my liquor in a fancy globe” joie de vivre, that I, for one, am happy to have more of in life.
