Amsterdam-Based Brand Bodor Launches on Kickstarter

The microbrand business is stronger than ever, with dozens of projects launching every month. Some offer classic watches, some play on originality, some want to offer the best value for the money – today’s proposition enters the latter category. Amsterdam-based brand Bodor plans to enter the entry-level watch market through Kickstarter with a stylish new watch and an original choice of movement supplier. Will this be the golden formula?

“We are founded on the idea that luxury watches should be affordable”, says Dutch entrepreneur Bart Hardeveld about his new Kickstarter watch brand, Bodor. Now, that’s not a new thing. We’ve seen quite a few new, trendy watch brands entering the market in the past years. All with the same pledge, the same as Hardeveld echoes: “due to our direct-to-consumer approach we are able to keep costs for supply and distribution to a bare minimum.”

Now, don’t get us wrong, there’s nothing to complain about here. Good watches do not need to be excessively expensive. And Bodor really does things a little different, which sets it apart from quite a few other Kickstarter projects. First of all, the design. Hardeveld designed his first creation in-house and shows a good feeling for this craft with a nice, clean and modern design – with a deliberate take on “oversized” (case and crown).

His first watch is called the Business Edition and it comes in three different versions, that could all be very well be worn with a suit. The first version has a dark blue dial with a sunburst finish and applied polished indices. The steel case measures a serious 45mm in diameter and 12mm in height. The watch is water-resistant to 100m. The brown leather strap is made by the American tannery Horween and has a crocodile pattern. It also has a butterfly clasp. The glass is sapphire crystal and has anti-reflective coating.

The second version has a black PVD case, steel indices, a black sunburst dial and a red seconds hand. The date window is also black, with white numerals. Its indices are polished steel. The third version has a steel case with black dial and steel indices and hands.

Inside the case ticks the S24 automatic movement made by Swiss manufacturer Swisstech. Bodor renamed it calibre BDR-S24 and uses its own rotor, that is shown through the glass caseback. It has 29 jewels, a frequency of 28,800 vibrations/h and a date function. The power reserve is sufficient for daily use, though not impressive: 36 hours. This movement’s architecture is based on ETA.

In all, Bodor shows that it is quite serious about its mission to make luxury watches accessible to a larger audience. Obviously, the brand faces a long and undoubtedly rocky road ahead, but it has started out in the right direction – even though we’d like to see a smaller version too. Bodor aims to keep prices low – the Kickstarter price is EUR 359 and the retail price will be EUR 499. The Kickstarter campaign closes on 6 October, and delivery of the watches should start in April 2020. More details on www.kickstarter.com/bodorwatches.