Born to be blue.
In an age where watch lovers are looking for ever bolder and brighter dials and statement pieces, one man who really gets that is Mikel Coffee. He started out as an independent watch modder, creating one-of-a-kind modded watches. And while he’s not a traditional watchmaker, it was his eye for design that allowed him to create watches that served as little wrist-worn pieces of art. If you’re like us and love colourful dials, he’s your man.
His webstore, Coffee Wrist Shop, is filled with interesting curios. With various dial types (shiny, gradient, patterned, textured) and case shapes, there’s something there for anyone looking for a statement piece, especially a one-of-a-kind watch that you’ll know no one else has. Your man even takes requests.
The only problem with one-of-a-kind watches is that you get one-of-a-kind customers. And so, Mikel eventually decided to bet on himself. Sure, it’s not a big leap from modder to brand, but that doesn’t mean that you just make 10, 25, 50, 100 of the same type of watch and see what happens. Well, at least, not if you’re Mikel. His mods already had a fairly cohesive design language, despite the variety, and so it was just a case of defining his design language and, as would become just as important, telling his story.
There’s a benefit to starting your own brand: you get to control the parameters of the watch. Instead of making the watch work with the parts available to you, now you can design the watch around the artistry of it. And so, in 2023, Mikel started OGA.
However, OGA isn’t just a brand. It’s a concept. Standing for ‘One Go Around,’ the brand name refers to life itself and the idea that you only get one go at it. A bold stance for a brand from Tulsa, part of the Bible Belt of the United States. Looks like we got ourselves a reader.
Sure, Tulsa may have given the world the m’bopping pop band Hanson, but Mikel’s gone straight Prog Rock with this one. Conceptually, the OGA brand will be a series with each new release referring to a stage of life. The first watch is the Emergent. Representing youth, the Emergent can be interpreted quite literally with its bold dial emerging from a case of inky darkness. However, it also applies to the brand’s journey with this watch using parts that link back to Mikel’s earlier modding work. Later models will play with the format more, adding unique design features and appealing to more adventurous watch fans. The follow up, the Evolution, focuses on Adolescence, while later releases will cover Adult, Elder and Legacy. A lifetime of watches, if you will.
And that brings us to this watch. The OGA Emergent is a bold dive-style watch with a large footprint (wristprint?) and a confident look that takes more than a casual glance to take in. Sure, the dial leaps out at you at first, but there’s more to the watch than you might first notice.
The Emergent comes in four colours: blue, green, orange and purple and each one really stands out in the photographs at least. We got our hands on the Emergent Blue (shout out to our buddy Chris, The Budget Watchman, for the loan) and that blue dial hits you immediately.
It also speaks of emerging with an almost organic finish, a non-uniform texture of shiny blue paint splashed across the dial. It’s the sort of watch that makes you stand under sunlight, slowly rotating it around so that you can see how it plays with the sun’s rays. It’s absolutely gorgeous and the exact sort of thing that Coffee Wrist Studio were known for. It’s crisp but irregular, beautiful but unconventional. In these days of sunburst and linen dials, this truly feels like there’s an artist’s hand behind it.
And yet, the purpose of the watch doesn’t play second fiddle to the dial. The hour and minute hands are chunky sword-style affairs. The sort of swords that would do some real damage rather than some poncy pointers, and the indices match them, offering a mix of large circular markers and rather unusual batons at 12 o’clock (essentially squares with triangles on top, like a hut from a role-playing game). All the markers are raised and applied precisely (not a given these days), too, and their size also allows them to be coated liberally in lume. And while the seconds hand is just a tiny stick of a hand, it does have a rounded (and lumed) counterweight at the bottom. Legibility? Not an issue.
You also get the logo in the typical position under the 12 o’clock marker. If we’re nitpicking, it’s not our favourite. Aside from being a little confusing at first (rather than saying OGA, it’s actually Mikel’s initials), it’s also applied where as the model name (Emergent) is printed in white below. If we were designing it, we’d maybe have matched them, but we didn’t, and we’ve never designed a watch, so who’s to say?
Thankfully, though, that’s all the detail you get on the dial, and that’s a good thing. That blue finish needs to be seen, and so we were quite happy that Mikel didn’t include a chapter ring.
This all sits underneath a capable double-domed sapphire crystal that offers good viewing angles with reduced distortion and good anti-reflective capabilities. It’s slightly raised too, offering a slightly vintage boxiness but with modern scratch resistance. It’s a welcome bit of a quality that you don’t always see on microbrands in this price range.
An also-unmarked inner bezel slopes up to a ceramic outer one. Made in ceramic and coated in black PVD paint, the bezel sits high above the dial, contributing to the watch’s slightly larger-than-normal 15mm thickness. Initially, we weren’t sold. Is this too much case? Is it too tall? Is it too black? But it does actually work. Rather than that dial feeling overly showy, it’s almost as if it’s a pool of water set in a well. Something that you’ll catch glimpses of rather than seeing it all the time and getting conditioned to its lustrous charms.
The bezel features a unidirectional 120-click rotation. It’s a little stubborn but satisfyingly clicky and sits above the main body of the case giving the watch a lot of presence on the wrist and what’s really nice about the side of the case is that it’s all finished in a hexagonal pattern, offering a cool bit of visual interest to what otherwise could have looked like just a big block of black. It might not show up in lower light, but it’s a really good bit of design that shows that Mikel hasn’t just made the case an afterthought.
The thickness of the watch, combined with the 43.5mm diameter, might be concerning for anyone with skinny lady wrists like us, but actually, it wears quite nicely thanks to the watch’s 48mm lug-to-lug length. The downturned lugs also help the case hug the wrist. We’re currently struggling with a 39mm watch with lugs like a fucking buffalo, and so actually, we’re impressed that the OGA was so wearable.
A custom signed screwdown crown operates the watch’s Seiko NH38 movement, and it’s a nice, large affair (we’re going through our large crown phase) that’s suitably grippy and, thankfully, the NH38 is a no-date movement, which means no ghost date position. This is a big deal as we keep reviewing watches with ghost dates, and we don’t like it. It’s such a rookie error, but thankfully, the Emergent comes with the right movement.
Of course, that is a bit of a basic movement. As one of Seiko’s workhorse automatic movements, it’s not going to blow you away, but it is pretty reliable, and it offers a 41 hour power reserve, and it has hacking seconds. The beat rate is a reasonably smooth 21,600vph. And look, we’ve compared a 21,600 with a 28,800 movement, and it’s honestly no big deal. That said, at $540 (around £400), you’d maybe expect a Miyota in there for the price but with the other specs and, of course, the hand-finished dials, you can see where your money is going.
Strangely, for such a basic movement, you do get an exhibition caseback. The movement isn’t even decorated, so that’s an odd choice, especially if it contributes in any way to the watch’s reduced water resistance of 100m, which is plenty for normal people like us but a bit low for a dive-style watch. If you’re low enough to worry about nitrogen in your blood, you probably won’t want to be wearing this piece. That said, we’re not diving anywhere ever, and we love a display caseback, so we’re more than happy with the choice.
However, if you do find yourself in the murky depths, you’ll be able to rely on that liberally-applied BGW9 Swiss SuperLuminova. There’s loads of it, it glows dramatically in blue, and you even have a nice touch with the bezel’s 12 o’clock triangle marker also being lumed (and it’s in green, which offers a practical bit of contrast).
The watch is paired with a perforated silicon strap, which wears nicely and complements the case just fine. It also features quick-release spring bars, and the lug width is 22mm, which means that swapping this out shouldn’t be an issue at all. We reckon you’ll want to keep it as is, though, as the black silicon matches the case’s rugged look and also feels comfortable immediately. Oddly, one picture on the website shows the watch with a blue strap, but that doesn’t appear to be an option you can select for checkout.
While it’s nice to maintain a varied and interesting watch collection, there are definitely some things we don’t usually go for. Watches over 42mm and black cases being two of them, and yet, the OGA Emergent just works. It doesn’t feel like a mod, and it certainly isn’t any kind of homage. It eschews quite a few of the current trends around proportions, too and yet it has a character of its own, and it succeeds in selling its concept (although we’d argue that a watch representing youth doesn’t need to be quite this big).
It might not be the height of horology, but as an expression of design and intent, the OGA Emergent delivers.
Pros:
+ Fabulous dial
+ We loved the texture on the outside of the case
+ Comfortable strap
+ Confident size but still wearable
Cons:
– 100m water resistance is at odds with dive-watch styling
– The Seiko NH38 is pretty basic
Summary:
As a debut watch, Mikel Coffee has delivered a confident and capable timepiece. It may not be the height of horology but the OGA Emergent’s design language and concept work well.
JUST THE FACTS
Availability/Options: The caseback engraving says this is a limited edition but the website gives no indication of that. Mikel has confirmed that these are limited to ten per colour so it’s safe to assume that this might not be available forever and so you might want to order one sooner rather than later. There are four colours (say no to ‘colour way’) available.
Brand: OGA
Model: Emergent
Style: Diver
Case Size: 43.5mm
Movement: Seiko NH38
Material: PVD Steel
LugWidth: 22mm
Band Type: Silicon strap
Price: £400 ($540)