Mezei bringing all the smoke.
Is it just us, or is the humble dress watch making a bit of a return to popularity? Sure, dive watches continue to dominate both sales and social media. Don’t get us wrong, dive watches are great, but there’s such a glut of them that they struggle to stand out a little these days unless you’re doing something pretty radical with either your colour choices or dial textures (or both if you’re Golby).
Free of the constraints of that archetype, and the constant nods to your Seamasters and Submariners, dress watches are a bit more open to express themselves and give unique looks that aren’t necessarily appropriate when having face-to-face meetings with barracudas at 300 meters underwater.
We’re definitely seeing more and more dress watches being wristrolled on the socials, and that’s thanks in part to brands like Mezei, Vario, Kurono Toki and Henry Archer who are doing their best to make sure their watches deliver in looks as well as specs.
Mezei (Mez-ay, not Met-zay or Mez-eye) is a UK brand formed by Sandor Mezei, a man who has worked in the world of watches for over a decade, from retail to management, working as a buyer and sourcing watches from second-hand and vintage pieces to high-end new models. And that can go one of two ways usually. We know people who are so burned out in watch retail that they barely want to even wear a watch these days, but then you get people like Sandor, whose passion for them has only grown.
When the highly corporatised world of high-end watches, with its endless marketing, paper pushing and waiting lists, can make buying watches feel like you’re the supporter of a big football club. You might love them, but you’re just a number to them. A resource that they can treat with the minimum viable amount of respect as they drain the money out of your pockets. But when a love of horology, or forget that, just the lovely, comforting feeling of being around watches that are simply cool, takes hold of you, it’s easy to look to the passion and uniqueness of microbrands. And if you’ve got a lot of passion, that can lead you to starting your own brand, just like Sandor has.
The first watches from Mezei are a series of three, all equally specced and differentiated only by their colour schemes (say no to ‘colourway’). The London Smoke with its grey dial and black strap, the Arctic Blue, which is sky blue with a light grey strap, and the Racing Green with its traditional British Racing Green dial and brown strap.
Now, Sandor doesn’t quite agree that these are dress watches, and that’s already an indicator of the passion he has for the brand. It’s like when I was in band (many years ago). You don’t want to classify yourself, pigeonhole what you do into some generic category. We’re creating here. We’re not just doing what some other person has already done. We’re not Oasis.
Instead, he sees them as everyday watches that you can dress up or down, which is fair. On the leather strap, you can easily wear these with a t-shirt on a rare sunny day, and it’ll look great. But equally, it suits formal situations and nights out. It’s definitely a ‘looker’ though.
But in terms of sheer watch categorisation, the Mezei watches have more in common with dress watches than anything else but, for sure, with their own unique spin. Indeed, when pressed on it, Sandor confirmed, “I didn’t look at anything else” when it came to initial points of inspiration. “I didn’t want to make ‘another’ of something.”
These watches instead were born through design and iteration, with the design going through almost fifty revisions all the time, with one question going through Sandor’s mind. “Does this watch have the right to exist?”
Sandor kindly loaned us the London Smoke and the Arctic Blue, and we’ve been getting to grips with them for a few weeks now, and that’s useful because these watches do have something of an adjustment period to them. You see, these watches have a real minimalist styling to them, and that means no indices whatsoever. We don’t know if you’ve ever had a watch without indices, but it can be a bit of a headache. Indices are there to give you a reference point on the dial, something to key in on when setting and reading the time, and so not having them can be a little tricky.
We were mainly drawn to the London Smoke, but all three colour choices are excellent, and each has its own character. Regardless of the colour, the specs and details are the same across the range.
The dial is the obvious and immediate highlight. A stamped radial sunray pattern texture sets the base of the 0.6mm steel dial with deep, fluted grooves that help it to catch the light and send it right into your face in cool and interesting ways. What’s great about it is that while it’s not flashy, the effect is just so obvious. A small roll of the wrist is enough to create a neat double shine across the dial. It’s got some of the best wristroll appeal that you’ve ever seen.
Where it really gets interesting is with the lack of details. There’s no logo, no indices, no pointless water resistance rating. It doesn’t feel the need to tell you that the movement is automatic or that it was made in Japan. There’s no referencing on there at all.
That said, the grooves in the dial do help with setting the watch, as there are sixty of them, so they do act as markers of a sort. The no indices thing might be challenging and not for everybody, but it’s a super clean look, and you do get used to it. It’s maybe not ideal if you’re rotating, say, seventeen watches, but in a smaller collection or at least with some solid wrist time, you’ll get used to it. And actually, there’s a weird benefit to it all. Let’s face it, you can put on a watch and maybe only glance at it once or twice in a day, but with the Mezei watches, you’ve got to take that extra second to orient yourself on the dial and take it in. I found myself engaging and connecting with the watch a little bit more in those moments.
Some people might push back on the inclusion of a date window. Not us. Like a horny divorcee, all we want is a date. It’s the obvious best complication a watch can have and is always handy. And here it’s actually quite welcome as it gives the dial a reference point, a marker to orient yourself to. It also breaks up the design. The London Smoke and Racing Green have excellently colour-matched date wheels, while the Arctic Blue wisely opts for a black and white one for legibility (we’ve got a colour-matched blue date wheel on our Henry Archer and reading it is like doing burpees for your eyes).
Over the dial, you get a three-hand configuration. The hour and minute hands are slender but wide enough to incorporate a good amount of BGW9 lume. The shape is quite unusual. A sort of Bauhaus-style pencil hand, but not as pointed. They’re edged in full polish and provide a clean and classy look. You can’t really imagine the watch with any other hand style, although we imagine that Sandor probably agonised over the choice for a while.The seconds hand is quite unusual too. The majority is a non-lumed stick pointer, but with a substantial counterweight that extends over half the length of the hour hand. That portion is lumed too. In terms of the proportions of the hands and how they sit on the dial, it all just works. And you’d expect it to because nothing on this watch has been chosen by accident.
That’s especially true of the case. The bezel is thin and fully polished, really accentuating that dial and giving it maximum real estate up front. But, and your mileage might vary, I find that sometimes a full polish finish can look a little cheap. Thankfully, the side of the case sports a brushed finish, which adds a bit of contrast (on cases, contrast is EVERYTHING), but was also a deliberate choice from Mezei as it allows you to wear a separate bracelet without worrying about scratches.
Underneath is a cushioned case back which returns to the fully polished look, giving the midsection a nice ice cream sandwich effect, and has a few specs engraved there along with the brand and model names and the watch’s serial number, which is a cool touch. Anything that makes a watch even slightly unique in its batch is always welcome.
The real star of the case’s underside, however are the engraved artworks that adorn each model. The Arctic Blue shows a boat sailing alongside a glacier, the Racing Green has a racecar motif, but it’s the London Smoke that really shines in this area with its depiction of Big Ben, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament. Of the three designs, it’s the most filled in and detailed, and it looks superb. All three drawings are a family affair, with Sandor’s brother contributing to the designs.
An odd, but again deliberate, choice is the lack of a screw-down crown. The movement supports either option, but Sandor explained the decision. “We could have had it screw down, but with no indices, there’s not much reason to take this into the water, and the leather strap isn’t something you want to take into the shower. There was no need for it to screw down, and by keeping the water resistance at 50m, we were able to reduce the thickness of the watch.”
It all makes sense. The case thickness is a mere 11.7mm, making it extremely comfortable to wear, and a tight 47mm lug-to-lug means that the watch feels smaller than its actual 40mm diameter. Here in Club Bullshit Wrists, we tend to favour 38-39mm, but this is absolutely fine, and that extra mil is deserved as it just gives you more dial to admire.
And actually, we’re not all that bothered about unscrewing a crown to start winding and setting the watch. Here you can just wind at any time without any extra steps, while the crown pulls out to a date position and then a time setting one. It’s a solid movement too, an automatic Japanese Miyota 8215 which gives you around 40 hours of power reserve, -20+40 seconds a day accuracy and hacking seconds. The sweep is a pretty good 21,600vph. Yes, you could argue the case for a 9015 as it would have provided a smoother sweep and a potentially slimmer profile, but for the cost, we’re quite happy with a workhorse movement.
The watch ships on a very comfortable dual leather strap (the outer layer being more durable and the inner being softer). Now, I swear the geometry of my wrist is like the bloody spinning triangle prison thing from Superman 2 (the last good superhero movie), and sometimes straps can just be super awkward with it, but this one is nice. Immediately comfortable, it offers a durable construction but with a stylish two-tone look. A really neat touch is a pair of white stitches on each part of the strap, just a nice little highlight. There’s even a presumably unnecessary black stitch in the floating keeper. We’re not sure why, but it’s there, and we appreciate it being there. Even after weeks of getting to know the watch, there are hidden details and, of course, you get a signed buckle.
You can also order additional options such as a mesh bracelet or rubber straps with deployment buckles for an additional cost. The London Smoke is going to look cool as anything on a mesh. Mesh bracelets are super underrated. And it’s all facilitated with quick-release spring bars, which is good because I like Sandor and don’t want to have to imprison him for crimes against watch straps when I become the Supreme Emperor of the UK watch scene in a few years.
To be honest, we’re struggling to think of anything we don’t like about the watch. Especially at this price point (£395). If you put a gun to our head and said, ‘Hey, Watch Country, be a complete arsehole’, we’d say that the sapphire crystal is a bit too reflective, despite its anti-reflective coating. But that’s only an issue if you’re, say, a watch reviewer trying to get clean photos of the dial outside. And sure, a 9015 would be a nice upgrade in the future, maybe, but we’re happy with the 8215 if it keeps the price down. Movement nerds are to watches what cosplayers are to videogaming: I support your right to express yourself, but I’m not letting you babysit my kids.
One interesting detail about the Mezei watch range is that everything is constructed and assembled in the same factory. We’ve had some disappointments recently from watches that we’ll be reviewing soon. Faulty parts and misalignments, where we’ve had to send watches back. Certain brands have handled that fine, whereas others have been, let’s say, complete and utter dicks about it (sorry Phoibos, but you’re rubbish), and that’s because they’re sourcing from different places, assembling somewhere else and trusting some other facility’s quality control processes to get things right. Mezei’s holistic approach means you can trust them a lot more (there’s also a two-year warranty if things go wrong).
To summarise all this, though, there’s a sweet spot when it comes to watches, especially as a reviewer. Sometimes a watch has specs you need, sometimes they have the look. Sometimes they don’t, but you just like the company. Sometimes they’ve got it all, but the company is a bit faceless, and they use an AI to answer your emails. But sometimes you find a watch that’s got the look you want, the functionality you need and the company behind it are real, passionate and approachable. When that happens, we can guarantee one thing: the watch is getting bought, and it’s earning a place in the top ten watch box. That’s two things, yes, but this has been a long review.
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
Pros:
+ Beautiful dial
+ Thoughtful design across the whole watch
+ Excellent strap
Cons:
– The lack of indices might be an issue for some
Summary:
It’s not just the solid specs and stylish, minimalist looks that make the Mezei Watch Company range stand out, it’s the fact that these watches have their own unique look and feel. As far as debut watches go, this is as brave and exciting a model as we’ve seen.
JUST THE FACTS
Availability/Options: This watch comes in three main colours. The London Smoke is currently sold out but will be available again in July and can pre-ordered here. The Arctic Blue and Racing Green are both available. An anniversary edition is currently up for pre-order here. New limited editions are also up for pre-order in maroon fume and midnight fume versions.
Brand: Mezei
Model: London Smoke and Arctic Blue
Style: Dress
Case Size: 40mm (47mm lug-to-lug)
Movement: Miyota 8250
Material: 316L Stainless Steel
Lug Width: 20mm
Band Type: Leather strap
Price: £395
For further opinions, check out these great reviews by Microbrand Watch and The Budget Watchman. And if you speak Portuguese, check out VCT.