Anoma’s A1 Slate Watch Took Months And Months To Get Right
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One of last year’s most talked-up watches was the A1, an unusual, sculptural and pebble-like timepiece from a new independent British brand, Anoma.
For any watch enthusiasts who feel an involuntary eye-roll coming on at the news of yet another start-up brand inspired by the Dirty Dozen field watches of World War II, or Submariner-adjacent dive watches from the 1950s, the mood board at Anoma HQ presumably offered quite a point of difference.
The A1 was inspired by the free-form table designs of mid-century French architect Charlotte Perriand, the modernist sculptures of Romanian wooden farm-tool enthusiast Constantin Brâncuși and the austere reinforced concrete work of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
Not a clicky bezel in sight.
“We had a lot of jewellery pieces in the family,” Anoma’s founder Matteo Violet-Vianello, formerly of Sotheby’s Watch Department and A Collected Man, the trading platform for vintage watches, told Esquire at the time.
“And a focus on the arts more generally. I was raised around cinema, sculpture, architecture. I really love that whole universe.”
The A1, which vaguely recalled Cartier's Pebble, was well-priced at £1,300 and proved a hit.
After that came what was arguably the harder part. A follow up that avoided the sophomore slump.
For Anoma the answer comes with the A1 Slate, the “second chapter” in Anoma's A1 series.
The new watch trades the blue lacquered dial of the original model for a vertically brushed version, engraved with contrasting triangles and finished with three layers of black lacquer.
The dial treatment alternates between matt and gloss, to create a two-tone contrast that plays with the light.
Ahead of the A1 Slate's launch, Esquire asked Matteo Violet-Vianello if he’d anticipated his first watch being so popular.
“Not at all!” he said.
“I set out to create something unique that spoke to me, hoping a few others would connect with it too. The enthusiasm and support really surprised me. It shows that people are increasingly open to experimentation and creativity.”
“After the First Series, I wanted to create the purest, most distilled version of the A1. In a world of endless colours, black felt powerful – bold yet discreet. But I wanted to do it my way. The dial is vertically brushed, engraved with contrasting triangles, and finished with three layers of black lacquer, shifting between smooth gloss and sharp two-tone contrast. It took six months to perfect the dial, and it remains highly challenging to produce — 50 per cent fail at the engraving stage, and another 50 per cent at the lacquering stage.
"This means only one in four dials meets our standards in the end.”
As for where Anoma will go from here, Violet-Vianello says he's heading back to the drawing board.
“When creativity is a core pillar, the challenge is to keep pushing forward — but that’s also the exciting part. Anoma looks beyond watchmaking to find pure, essential beauty and bring it to the wrist. The A1 is shaped by different influences, so we’ll explore new twists on its design, bringing out different facets of its personality.
"We’re also working on an entirely new sculpture, the A2, built on the same ideas of inspiration outside of watchmaking, essential beauty, and a strong tactile appeal.”
Like its predecessor, the A1 Slate measures 39mm x 38mm, runs on the automatic Sellita SW100 movement and is made from 316L stainless steel.
The watch is priced at £1,800, with orders being taken from 10 March for delivery in June 2025.
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