From Scotland With Love: The Latest Artistic And Artisanal Watches From AnOrdain And Paulin

Charlotte Paulin is the founder of Paulin Watches, and Lewis Heath is the founder of anOrdain. At the same time, they are also husband and wife. Can you imagine the dinnertime conversations in that household? Or maybe they’re one of those couples who can keep work and private life perfectly separated. Anyway, their brands recently launched new watches within a week of each other. AnOrdain introduced the Model 2 Porcelain with a glossy black dial, and Paulin presented the Zapata Modul in Night and Day variants. All watches have very interesting dials for very diverse reasons.

AnOrdain is known for its artisanal enamel dials, so it’s surprising that the brand has now introduced a watch with a porcelain dial. We’ll get into the why and how in just a bit. Paulin is known for its relatively more affordable watches with artistic and colorful dials. Let’s see what both these Scottish watch companies have been up to.

The Paulin Zapata Modul in Night and Day variants

For these two new watches, Paulin collaborated with Chicago-based graphic designer and artist Crystal Zapata. She’s mostly known for her bold and colorful designs, in which typography plays a critical role. In that respect, this collaboration makes a lot of sense as Paulin always puts a strong emphasis on colors and typography. The Zapata Modul Day and Night watches both feature Paulin’s characteristic 35mm C-shaped stainless steel case. It has a fully brushed finish and comes on a mesh bracelet.

But what truly sets these watches apart are their dials and case backs. That’s where Crystal Zapata’s input comes into play. Both the Day and Night variants feature a sunburst dial with big Arabic numerals marking 3, 6, 9, and 12 o’clock. The minute tracks feature a star at every hour, which matches the counterweight on the contrasting second hands. However, the most outstanding feature here is the Arabic numerals.

They almost look like they’re coming to a standstill after having spun around for a while. They’re largely out of focus and look like big clouds on the off-white and deep navy backgrounds. On the Day version, they’re light blue, and on the Night model, they are white. The engraved case backs feature a constellation design by Zapata.

Quartz movements inside

The Zapata Modul Day and Night share an 8.2mm thickness, including the domed Hesalite crystal. The lugs have a modest 40mm span from tip to tip, and the case offers a 50m water resistance rating. Behind the constellation-covered case back lies an ETA 955.112 quartz movement, which has an impressive battery life of seven years. The Paulin Zapata Modul Day and Night watches debuted last weekend at the Dallas Windup Watch Fair. A limited amount was available there, but you can still get your hands on one through the Paulin website for €464.95 each.

The anOrdain Model 2 Porcelain

Yes, you read that right — porcelain, not enamel. AnOrdain does indeed specialize in making enamel dials in its workshop in Glasgow’s Templeton Building. However, those dials usually take up a lot of a single person’s time and can’t be produced in batches. Porcelain dials, on the other hand, can be produced in small batches of roughly 30 to 40 pieces, which could speed up production times significantly. That must come in handy when the watches are as highly in demand as anOrdain’s.

Producing porcelain is a completely different craft compared to enamel, though. While enamel requires a base of glass powder, porcelain is a product made from clay. Porcelain can also withstand much higher temperatures than enamel. For enamel, the kiln (a higher-temperature oven) heats up to 840°C, and for porcelain, it climbs to 1,300°C. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s see what the watch looks like.

Glossy black with a custom typeface

The dial within the anOrdain Model 2 Porcelain is a glossy deep black. That’s because the porcelain has some iron oxide inside. Due to the production process, each dial has a unique texture with tiny dimples and specs. The hour and minute hands have a gold-plated and sandblasted finish, which perfectly matches the custom typeface used for the numerals. Those feature a gold-tone outline and a hand-applied application of luminous material.

For now, the anOrdain Model 2 Porcelain only comes in the brand’s large size. This means that the fully brushed case has a 39.5mm diameter, an 11mm thickness, and a 46mm lug-to-lug span. A smaller 36mm version will be available later this year.

Inside the Model 2 Porcelain lies an automatic La Joux-Perret G101 movement. It runs at a frequency of 28,800vph, holds a power reserve of 68 hours, and features 24 jewels.

The watch comes on a matching 20mm glossy black shell cordovan leather strap and is water resistant to 50 meters. Oh, and did I mention the domed sapphire crystal has six layers of antireflective coating to offer a great view of the beautiful porcelain dial?

What do you think?

The anOrdain Model 2 Porcelain in the large size costs €2,227 (ex. VAT). Visit the anOrdain website to see when the watches will be available. There’s also a nice video there that shows you the production process of the porcelain dials.

I quite like the new Paulin and anOrdain watches. These two brands dare to do things differently, and clearly, this pays off. The Paulin Zapata Modul offers a very creative dial design in a sturdy and affordable watch. The anOrdain Model 2 Porcelain shows once again how skilled the brand’s craftspeople are, and hopefully, it’ll also help shorten the wait list a little.

Let me know in the comments below what you think of these two releases from Paulin and anOrdain.