Indian watch brand Jaipur Watch Company has over 10 years of history and a distinctive cultural focus on elements that hearken to modern nostalgic sentiment in the dynamic country. What put Jaipur Watch Co. on the map with Indian consumers in the first place were their original “coin dial” watches. These types of products continue to be a major part of the brand’s product focus today. Using various coins from recent history, these timepieces offer a nice mixture of enthusiast horology items and mainstream Indian fashionability. The Jaipur brand offers interesting lessons for newer watch companies both in terms of how they have positioned their product design and pricing and in terms of building out their own internal production capabilities. Using India’s considerable population of craftspeople, especially in the jewelry world, Jaipur Watch Co. appears to offer a product at a price point that would be difficult to achieve from brands in much of the Western world.
Jaipur Watch Co. was founded by Gaurav Mehta, who was delighted to talk about his brand with aBlogtoWatch. As I mentioned above, his company straddles the line between enthusiast collector watches and mainstream (in India) emotional sensibility. That effort has resulted in a product catalog that has a number of distinctive watches for both men and women. The best thing you can say about Jaipur Watch Co.’s creations is that (for the most part) they don’t look like other watches on the market. On top of that, the pricing is fair because it does not have traditional watch collectors in mind who are accustomed to much more expensive items.
Over the last several years, Jaipur Watch Co. has created a number of different “coin dial” watches, for all genders. The company has experimented with not only a number of different coins on the dials but also different cases and decorations around the joins themselves (which are typically too small to entirely serve as watch dials). One of the only Swiss watch industry analogs would be the coin dial watches produced by Corum – but in general coin dials for watches are rare. This particular Jaipur Watch Co. Roman Baagh model watch features an Indian Rupee coin from 1947. That year is also very important to many Indian people because it is the year that the British government entirely handed India back over to its native people for sovereign rule after years of colonialism.
Jaipur Watch Co. makes very similar watches such as the Roman Baagh III watch. The difference between those two models is the coin on the dial. The Roman Baagh III watch features the slightly smaller half-rupee coin from 1947. What Jaipur Watch Co. smartly does is create a slightly different peripheral ring around the coin itself that both fills up the rest of the case and includes markers to read the time. In addition to the different-sized dial rings around the coin, the dials of these timepieces also experiment with different hour markers and even colors. Jaipur Watch Co. offers substantially similar watches with Roman numbers hour markers (as pictured), Arabic numbers, and even Hindu numerals. It can be difficult to choose which Jaipur Watch Co. coin dial timepiece you most like given the variety, but I think that overall the diversity of the products that Jaipur Watch Co. makes allows them to offer a sense of individuality for buyers, while not creating too many production headaches for the company by having too many entirely different items in their catalog.
The Jaipur Watch Co. Roman Baagh watch here is in polished steel and 43mm wide with a roughly 50mm lug-to-lug distance. The case is 14mm thick and water resistant to 50 meters with an AR-coated and domed sapphire crystal over the dial. The watch is on the larger size but that works for a lot of buyers. The case is inspired by some classic timepiece design elements including the rounded coined-edging (ideal for a watch with a coin on the dial), and the hinge-style lugs (which don’t articulate but are rather fixed in an angled down position) that allow a larger case to wear a bit more comfortably on smaller wrists. The 22mm-wide black leather strap (fitted with a steel folding deployant clasp) with the alligator print is perhaps among the least distinctive elements of the watch but very suitable for the style. The straps come on quick-release spring bars and can easily be swapped out for something that might be a bit more distinctive.
Visible through a small window on the rear of the case is a view of the mechanical movement inside of the watch. Jaipur Watch Co. currently uses the popular Japanese Miyota caliber 8125 automatic mechanical movement inside of this and similar watches. The caliber 8125 offers the time with minutes, hours, and seconds, operating at 3Hz with about two days of power reserve when fully wound. The hands on the dial don’t really need to be skeletonized, but I understand why Jaipur made that design decision, as it allows for a slightly less obstructed via of the coin face. The black color of the hands does offer a lot of contrast, which helps this Roman Baagh watch be rather legible when reading the time.
Jaipur Watch Co. has placed a lot of its watches on celebrities popular within India, a marketing decision that has no doubt helped the brand’s popularity and business success. By blending approachable pricing, distinctive designs, actual hand craftsmanship, and a coherent focus on Indian culture, Jaipur Watch Co. is an interesting and probably growth-oriented Indian watch brand, in my opinion. The country in general is set to grow from the perspective of luxury product buying power. What makes India a bit different from places such as China is the native interest in luxury and the long-established heritage of endemic fashion and high-end tastes. India will thus continue to be a luxury watch market where foreign and domestic products can do well with consumers. A bigger question for me is how much their ethos translates internationally. No doubt the extensive group of people around the world who make up the larger Indian diaspora population will be moved by this and other Jaipur Watch Co. products. What about people who didn’t grow up around Indian culture or in India? That is an interesting question that remains to be answered. A key success point of many European luxury brands has been their ability to package their designs and products for consumption by foreign customers. India probably has similar potential but simply hasn’t done so for as long as places like France, Switzerland, and Italy. Let me know what you think in the comments. The Jaipur Watch Company Roman Baagh Steel is priced at approximately $635 USD. Learn more at the Jaipur website.
Necessary Information:
>Brand: Jaipur Watch Company
>Model: Reference BW02 Roman Baagh Steel
>Price: $635.28 USD
>Size: 43mm wide, 14mm thick, ~50mm lug-to-lug distance
>When reviewer would personally wear it: As a social watch when a dial made with a vintage coin could be a good conversation topic.
>Friend we’d recommend it to first: Coin collectors and anyone interested in modern Indian history including those who sentimentalize contemporary Indian independence.
>Best characteristic of watch: Good quality for the money, with lots of distinctive design elements and an overall fun and spirited design. Coin-based dials are done well.
>Worst characteristic of watch: Lots of Jaipur product variety might confuse some customers and prevent them from making a choice. Straps could have a bit more personality. Some will no doubt want smaller, thinner versions of the core case design.
