Enough, Watch Brands! Stop Releasing Sports Watches With Integrated Bracelets
Well, I said “please” in the subtitle, so I hope the title didn’t come off too strong. But I do mean every word I wrote. Something snapped after having yet another edgy, sporty watch creation with some very particular and recognizable features show up at Fratello HQ. I couldn’t help but shout, “Stop releasing sports watches with integrated bracelets!” Forgive me for my little rant, but I need to get it out because I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Luxury sports watches with integrated bracelets — don’t you love them? Contrary to what you might think after reading this article’s title, I do. I especially love them if they’re truly integrated and real. What do I mean by that? I will explain.
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Extra-Thin “Jumbo” Openworked
Watch brands, I urge you to stop releasing sports watches with integrated bracelets
When you search “integrated bracelet” on the Fratello website, you see an abundance of watches with them. But some are more integrated than others. Some talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, so to speak. A genuine integrated bracelet extends into the case, creating a single piece. Let me try to be clearer and more specific by bringing in a textbook example, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. The “RO” doesn’t have traditional lugs for a strap to fit between. Instead, the watch has two cut-outs on the sloping case edge, and the “male links” allow the bracelet to integrate with that.
Quite simply, if you can fit a regular strap to your watch, it’s not an integrated design. A watch with an integrated bracelet needs a very specific style of strap or bracelet. And just as there is “faux patina,” there are “faux integrated bracelets.” You might think a Rolex GMT-Master II is a watch with an integrated bracelet, but it’s not. It has an integrated look because of the bracelet’s design, but you could remove it and fit a regular strap if you wanted to. The Rolex Oysterquartz, however, qualifies as a watch with an integrated bracelet.
Rolex Oysterquartz
There’s a time and place for everything
With the whole “integrated or not integrated” point out of the way, let’s look at the element of time. There’s a time and a place for everything, and it seems that one of the first wristwatches — if not the first — designed for men with an integrated bracelet was the Omega Constellation ref. 168.045 from 1969. Contrary to what some expected, this Constellation is not a Gérald Genta design because he was not working for Omega then. But Genta’s Audemars Royal Oak from 1972, which came out in a limited series of 1,000 watches, is probably the most significant reference point in the history of luxury sports watches with integrated bracelets.
Omega Constellation ref. 168.045 from 1969 — Image: Omega Forums (tomvox1)
Also, after the integrated octagonal Royal Oak, Genta designed the square(ish) Patek Philippe Nautilus and the round IWC Ingenieur. Plenty more watches from the 1970s and ’80s share the outline of the various Genta designs. A few well-known examples are the Girard-Perregaux Laureato, Vacheron Constantin 222, and the most integrated of them all, the first and extremely thin Piaget Polo from 1979 with a bracelet that seems to integrate with both the case and the dial. The Chopard Alpine Eagle’s lineage also began in the 1980s as the somewhat baroque St. Moritz.
Not only high-end brands produced watches in this style. The most prominent example is the 1978 Tissot Seastar Quartz, which became the PRX a few years ago. All the brands mentioned did it back then and continue to do it today, and that’s fine. But what increasingly started to irritate me is that a watch design with evident roots in 1970s design language is overly used by brands that either missed out at first or didn’t exist back then.
Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF 36mm
You’re gorgeous and everything, but no thanks
The various executions of the Czapek Antarctique, H. Moser & Cie. Streamliner, and Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF, for example, are gorgeous watches. The modestly sized Hermès Cut is pretty cute and all, but I can’t take it anymore. That also goes for the more affordable Yema Urban Traveller, Nivada Grenchen F77, Christopher Ward The Twelve, and various Frederique Constant Highlife models.
Some are nice, some less so, but in the end, I can’t be bothered any longer. It’s my loss, I know, because the brand-new Ressence Type 7 is a svelte and smooth-looking creation, although this watch, just like the stunning A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus, are both deceptive “faux integrated” creatures. These watches are like wolves in sheep’s clothing, and I’m warning you, don’t let them deceive you.
Ressence Type 7
Fight the FOMO, and embrace the JOMO
I realize that watch brands are commercial entities that must sell watches to survive. Hopping on the bandwagon is also more or less acceptable in a world where trends come and go, but if a brand launches a watch with an integrated look in 2025, it feels like a bad case of FOMO and nothing else. Two examples at two price levels inspired this article/rant. The first is the MeisterSinger Kaenos (€4,100), a one-handed watch from Münster, Germany.
The other watch is from the same country, but in the south, Munich. The Löbner Sledge (CHF 7,700) is a beautifully made, clever watch from a brand that started two years ago and is exclusively sold at Bucherer. The sliding crown protection is an ingenious thing of beauty, but the slanted shape of the upper and lower parts of the case and how the rubber strap attaches to them are not original. Fight the fear of missing out and embrace the joy of missing out, watch brands. Yes, it’s okay not to be part of the club. Instead, start a new club on your terms, believe, be strong, and make it happen!
Löbner Sledge
Back to reality, back to my senses
As I said, there’s a time and a place for everything. In the case of the MeisterSinger Kaenos, a single hand showing time meant to help you escape its fast pace inside a sporty watch that jumps on the fast-moving bandwagon tells you that design and function need to correlate to make sense. You can argue that dive watches look more or less the same. I agree, but that’s because form follows function. In the case of sports watches with integrated bracelets, the design comes before function. There is the freedom to do something else, but that liberty is squandered in favor of creating something fashionable.
Tissot PRX UFO Robot Grendizer
If I had a say in it, I would declare the age of the integrated-bracelet sports watch over. Done and dusted. I know it is a free world, but I still urge watch brands with no history in the matter to stop filling the watch universe with me-too creations and start creating new stars. And for the brands making these watches since the 1970s and 1980s, just tone it down a notch or two. Thank you. Rant over. Any thoughts and/or comments, dear Fratelli?
