To boldly go where no watch has gone BVOR.
As a fully ensconced member of Gen X, this writer is in an interesting position when it comes to seeing how all the other generations are observed. The Boomers are constantly taking a cultural kicking for checks notes being able to afford to buy a house, while Gen Y, Z and Alpha are seen as self-identifying victims of society, the economy and the mental health epidemic. As it turns out, Gen X bought houses too, but we also invented punk, new wave and grunge, so we get a pass for being cool, albeit a long time ago. Neat.
But there is a tendency for older people to think that younger people are checks Wikipedia complete bullshit: addicted to social media and energy drinks, destroying the planet with Bitcoin mining, scamming each other, talking exclusively in memes, liking Logan Paul and, unforgivably, always holding up their phones at gigs. But really, all these categorisations are nonsense. Old people are cool. They bake cakes and wear nice hats. And, sometimes, young people can channel all the resources around them, and their own youthful energy, into something great.
Oliver Smith and Henry Johnston are best friends who went to what sounds like a very posh school indeed, Aldenham in Elstree. A boarding school with actual houses such as Woodrow, Martineau, Kennedy, and their own, Beevor’s House, named after its first housemaster, Mr Beevor, when it was founded in 1895. I went to a school that neighboured Pollards Hill Estate in Mitcham, where we were taught how to get time off for pleading guilty, how to write a good ransom note (‘if you ever want to see your son again comma’) and how to break into betting shops (I got a B in that GCSE). That said, Aldenham’s neighbouring Haberdashers’ School for Boys and Girls sounds like they offer courses on cooking swans and how to dress well while hunting homeless people.
But anyway, it was at Aldenham that they studied engineering under Nurul Alom, a relationship that would see the trio eventually develop their own watch brand: BVOR, a stylised take on the name of their old house (so ‘bee-vor’ rather than ‘b’vor’). Look, it could be divisive, but it scores points for having a personal history and for being a unique word. Rolex wasn’t a type of biscuit when Hans Wilsdorf came up with the name; it was a unique and memorable word. Five letters that had never been put together like that before. My man invented a watch and Wordle on the same day, son. And the boys may have been riding a horse-drawn omnibus when they came up with the name, just like Hans was (alright, alright, the posh jokes stop here), but it’s a brand name that sounds modern, taking the heritage of 1895 and putting a very 2020s spin on it. And we’re like a year away from some company inventing a toilet called CRPSTR or something, so get off your high palfrey, people. Okay, that was the last one, I mostly promise.
Their first watch is the Vision, and it saw them become the youngest ever watch designers in the UK to bring a watch to market, which happened when they were 20. Remember being 20? Remember how stupid you were? As dumb as a badger with two tails and no head. It’s a miracle we made it this far. Well, these kids not only produced a watch but also managed to release it to the public in December 2022. Outrageous.
Available in several variants (black PVD, blue PVD, polished silver in blue and black and brushed silver in blue and, again, black which is the one BVOR loaned us for this review), the Vision is a little hard to categorise. It’s got the robustness of a sports watch and the guarded crown leans in that direction, but it’s not really specced out for sports, and the leather strap suggests that it’s not really meant to be. It’s legible but not a field watch by any means; there’s nothing tool-y about it, and it’s definitely not a dress watch. It’s like a good song. You get hints of inspiration, and much of that is open to interpretation, but it’s doing its own thing. Sorry to shit on Oasis for two reviews running, but we’re not lazily ripping off The Beatles here, we’re exploring boundaries. Jazz fusion watchmaking. Nice.
That’s apparent right away. Everything about the watch is an idea, a principle or a statement. There’s nothing wasted in this design. If there’s an area of the watch where a smart decision can be made, the Vision has one there. There are nods to the past, but with modern flourishes. You can squint and maybe see a bit of TAG Heuer Monaco in there or some other square-ish watch, but that’s really just your brain trying to fit an unconventional watch into something it can understand, and that’s where microbrand watches can start to get really interesting.
These days, the trend with microbrands is to go all-in with dials: bold textures, confident colours and unusual materials. Look, we’re complete marks for that sort of thing. Shove a bit of meteorite in a watch and dye it hot pink or something, and we’ll be too busy salivating to wonder where the money went. But it’s becoming a trend. As Guy Picciotto once said, “once something becomes static, I start to become uncomfortable. Things become so ritualised, they’re no longer powerful. They don’t excite people anymore. They don’t move people anymore.”
And this is why the Vision is cool, because it’s eschewing that idea of taking something traditional and just putting an exciting element on it. The Vision feels all-new. It’s doing things we’re not seeing elsewhere. The confidence of youth, right?
Indeed, we normally talk about dials first in our reviews, because we’re complete sluts for them, but with the Vision you need to lead with the case because it’s quite something. This watch has a curved, rectangular shape to it: a bold 40mm high and 42mm across, with a substantial 5mm bezel. It echoes the look of an old CRT television in some ways, and it speaks to the team’s engineering background thanks to a set of eight small screws that give the watch a cool, industrial look. The screws aren’t aligned in real life, as they are functional, but on the website renders they are, so bear that in mind. It’s somewhat vintage-inspired with its curved, elegant lines but the overall effect is more modern than that.
The bezel on this model sports an excellent vertically brushed finish which tones things down a little, but in a thoughtful way. There’s a real honest character to it: bold in some ways, understated in others, impressive but also meaningful. It speaks to a love of watches for sure, but also to an understanding of design and engineering, too.
Square-ish watches have a tendency to wear big, and you would expect that 42mm width to make it a no-go for me with my 6.25-inch wrists. And when you compound that with a 53mm lug-to-lug, it should leave me feeling like Peter Dinklage trying to get on a rollercoaster. But here’s the thing, it doesn’t. There’s something about how it all comes together. Yes, the lugs are large, but they’re a good 3.5mm lower than the face of the watch. They’re muted a little by the same brushed polish, and they’ve got enough taper that they curve with the wrist. And those case dimensions work. The 42mm width gives it plenty of presence without it feeling like you’re wearing the Predator’s wrist gauntlet, while the 40mm height gives a bit of relief and helps us skinny-wristed folk take part in all this goodness too.
What’s really great is how the dial supports the overall design. This variant features a stainless steel black dial with a horizontally lined texture made up of multiple layers of lacquer. This works brilliantly with the bezel because it mimics the effect of scanlines on an old television. Admittedly, that might not mean too much to you if you’ve not spent the last twenty years playing SNES games on an emulator, but it’s a really smart, classic look, and there’s just enough depth to the effect where it’s not in your face, but it catches the light nicely when observed closely.
On the dial, you get the brand logo on a raised plaque, stylised as ꓭVOR, and below that it says AUTOMATIC, a reference, of course, to the movement. In the lower half, you get the model name “Vision” printed in a red italicised font. It’s a nice addition as it gives the dial the most subtle pop of colour and feels a little retro in its style. Combined with the shape of the bezel and the texture of the dial, there’s almost a retro-futurist ‘80s thing going on, and we’re here for it.
At the very lowest edge of the dial are the words “LONDON DESIGN” nestled between the lower three indices. I’m from London, and I’m a child of the ‘80s, so basically this watch is ticking boxes all day for me. Get out of my head, BVOR!
Chunky baton-style hour and minute hands sit above the dial. Squared-off and full of SuperLuminova lume, these offer superb legibility and are lined with polished surfaces, really making them pop. What’s great is that the applied indices are also baton-style and finished in the same way, so there’s a real continuity of design. The dauphine-style seconds hand isn’t lumed but has a nice split along its length, adding visual interest. The hand layout, like everything else on the watch, was designed specifically for this model by the trio and you can tell. It just works.
With the dual-baton twelve o’clock marker and bold dividers along the chapter ring, you can tell BVOR have prioritised clarity here—and it’s really paid off. As interesting as the watch is to look at, it handles its primary function extremely well.
You also get a date window which shares a similar landscape aspect ratio to the case and is again finished in polished metal. The wheel itself features white text on black, which matches the rest of the design. We love the look of the blue version of the watch, but that one has a black-on-white date wheel, which is great for legibility but not quite as cool (although absolutely fine).
Some people don’t like a date window, but for us it’s the best complication for a watch to have. And while the window at three o’clock might not be for you, we couldn’t care less about symmetry on a watch. If a watch has a crown, it’s not going to be symmetrical anyway. There’s also a horizontal flow to this watch, from the case dimensions to the dial texture, so it all just works together.
This all sits underneath a sapphire crystal, flat but anti-reflective coated, that, in combination with the 316L Stainless Steel body, ensures a decent level of durability. This is a nice-looking piece, you’re going to want to keep it looking that way and BVOR have clearly acknowledged that.
Returning to the case, the vertical brush continues along the side of the watch, and there’s a modern-looking crown guard setup that slopes up, giving the side of the watch a nice flow. It doesn’t leave a lot of room to operate the crown, though, with less than half of it being accessible, so if you’ve got chunky sausage fingers, you might struggle. Luckily, my hands were made for music and lovemaking, so I’m able to operate it just fine. That might not have been the case if the crown screwed down, but it doesn’t, and while that affects water resistance (the watch is rated to 5ATM, so don’t go swimming in it), it does make general use easier.
The crown has the usual three-position operation: position 0 for winding, position 1 for date setting, and position 2 for time setting. The Vision is powered by a Miyota 9015 automatic movement. For this sort of watch at this price, that’s what we would expect, but we’re happy to see a 9000 series in there rather than an 8000. It’s a solid movement offering hacking seconds, a 42-hour power reserve, and decent accuracy of -10 to +30 seconds per day. And there’s an attractive 28,800 vph smooth sweep, which certainly adds to the quality feel of the watch.You also get a good look at it thanks to the exhibition caseback (also underneath a sapphire crystal). While that’s always a cool feature, there’s still plenty of interest around it thanks to the engraving that surrounds it. You get the usual specs and references—including batch/serial numbers, which we always love—but also an attractive pattern that takes advantage of the fuller case size. It looks great: one of the best rear views of any watch we’ve reviewed.
The strap is no slouch either, with a very luxurious-feeling leather effort. The soft calf leather underlay, combined with those tapered lugs, makes it immediately comfortable. I sometimes struggle with leather straps, as they can feel a bit mad and jaunty on my wrists, but the Vision wears very nicely. It looks great thanks to its alligator texture and lovely white embossed stitching. There’s BVOR branding on there (along with the “Genuine Leather” wording), as well as on the delightfully chunky buckle.
It’s one of the best straps we’ve seen on a watch, which is good news because you’re not really going to be able to switch it out. The strap doesn’t have quick-release spring bars, and we reckon you could easily do some actual damage to the leather trying to get a tool in there. We do like having a choice about these things, though, and while the strap is an absolutely perfect match, it’s a shame we won’t get to see how this looks on a bracelet, especially as those large lugs mean pretty much anything would fit. That said, we believe the PVD and polished versions of the watch do have quick release, so it’ll be worth checking to see if this gets changed on the brushed versions later on.
You can’t deny that as a debut watch, the Vision is BVOR batting a six. As a reviewer, you need to pick fault sometimes, but when every quirk is deliberate and designed, it’s hard to criticise—especially when everything works together as a cohesive whole. What’s mad about it all is that it’s just so hard to classify. It is industrial but not brutalist, modern yet echoing the ‘80s, and it tells the story of two incredibly young watch designers and their tutor, while having a heritage that dates back over 130 years.
And don’t let the size put you off. This isn’t a stealthy timepiece you hide under your sleeve. It’s designed to have presence, while its well-considered design means that it works with your wrist, not against it. It’s full of nice details and clever touches that give it a visual interest that will keep you looking at it for ages. Indeed, everyone we’ve shown it to has cooed at it while asking, “Rich, man, why do you keep showing me watches?” Well, that’s because watches are cool—and this is a very cool watch.
4.5 out of 5.0 stars
Pros:
+ A really striking holistic design
+ Original looks
+ Excellent strap
+ Superb legibility
Cons:
– The case dimensions can seem intimidating
– No quick-release on the strap (on this model at least) and not much room to get a spring bar tool in without damaging the leather
– Pretty unsuitable for water with just 5ATM and a leather strap
Summary:
Not all watches need to be neatly sorted and categorised. The Vision doesn’t fit into some sort of archetype and that allows it to stand out. It’s not quite a sports watch, it’s not really a dress watch. It’s got a couple of vintage nods but it’s more modern than that. It looks well-engineered but it’s too nice looking to be labelled as industrial. It’s large on paper but somehow works on the wrist. It’s a real head-scratcher but instead of being too quirky to appeal to anyone, the Vision is good enough, especially in person, to BVOR everyone (oh shut up, me).
JUST THE FACTS
Availability/Options: The BVOR Vision is currently in stock and comes in a few variants. The PVD coated black and blue versions (£599 each) and two silver versions that you can get in black or blue (£549).
Brand: BVOR
Model: Vision
Style: Whatever, man
Case Size: 40mm x 42mm (53mm lug-to-lug)
Movement: Miyota 9015
Material: 316L Stainless Steel
Lug Width: 22mm
Band Type: Leather strap
Price: £549