Oris — independent explorer brand (Part 1)

I was introduced to Oris watches long before I was very interested in watches. A colleague with a complicated relationship with his Geländerwagen had a Oris TT1 on his wrist. “Oris is the best quality-to-price ratio you could find in Swiss watches”, he told me. The ruggedness of the watch matched the car, both of them pieces of beefy metal made for men with outdoorsy aspirations.
Not long after (in 2011), I bought my first Oris. An un-elegant BC3 that stayed with me until I auctioned it off last month. That is one of three Oris(es?) I’ve owned, all of them sold to fund other watches. My story with Oris illustrates both the main strength and the challenge as a brand: it is not about the destination it self — it is the exploration.
NB: this is a part of a series of watch brand analysis pieces I am writing. If you haven’t read my analysis of Rolex yet. Do it now.
If you need a brand view on A. Lange & Söhnes The ODYSSEUS…
The gateway drug to Swiss luxury
Most watch people have a brand that got them into this mess in the first place. Usually, that brand is not Oris. That brand is Seiko.
But, after enjoying the confusing-yet-satisfying highs and weird lows of the Japanese ginormous catalogue, they often start feeling the pull towards the Swiss cheese like European doves to overpriced pastry on public squares. They come in swarms and run rampage on tables and sidewalks, hoping to get away with a steal in the form of your croissant.
For people exploring the watch world, that steal often looks like:
— Swiss Swiss Swiss made
— looooong heritage
— high quality
— distinct design, but not unfamiliar
That steal is often Oris.
Sometimes the doves digest on Tag Heuer or Longines. Some of them take a trip to the smaller squares that also have a nice buildings on it, but also an ugly modern one and a roundabout, and then they go for a Squale or maybe one of the more inspired Certinas.
And in these digital days a lot of them wander off the main square, putting their finger in the air to big corporations and feast on the ecological diet of microbrands or low-end vintage.
But, the doves metaphor is actually unfitted for a story about Oris. This brand is about individualism and moving forward — it is not about collectivism or seeing the same nice building everybody else see.
Finding Oris
A lot of people who love Oris found it when they where starting to explore the watch world. Having seen endless of uninspired Aquaracers and Hydroconquests, two dive watches from Tag Heuer and Longines respectively that is in the same price bracket as the best known Oris watches, they find this little brand that is not on billboards, not prominent in jewellery-and-watch stores, not sponsoring the Premier League. Buying a Oris Aquis, a watch that does not look like any other watch, fits with a buyers story of “me and my journey”.
Oris is just a Swiss watchmaker with cool, mechanical watches and a sensible price point.
The buyer might feel: my exploration lead me to Oris. I found it.
And when Oris has been discovered, it feels like just the right local restaurant you coincidentally sit down in after you have wandered off the tourist areas (aka Shit Street, aka the Fuck Away from Area) when visiting a city. It’s packed with “locals” (half of them really are just better integrated tourists with better research skills than you) and the service is firm and the food seems to taste more…. authentic.
Because Oris is authentic. Unpretentious. Approachable, but also a bit unfamiliar at first.
Oris is an Explorer brand
There are a few ways of regarding the Oris brand. Many will say that it is an Everymans brand, underlining the real-watches-for-real people mentality that many Oris fans adhere to.
But, I am pinning down Oris as an archetypical Explorer brand.
Here is why:
- It is independent — the corporate equivalent of freedom
- Slogan: “Go Your Own Way” (Everymans brands is often about belonging, not individualism as Explorers are)
- Many of their watches are tools for exploration— dive watches, pilot watches — watches that are rugged enough for adventure
- Sponsorships of individuals that “have gone their own way”
- It comes from a weird-name place (that is not Geneva or Basel — who knows what Hölstein is anyway?)
- the name is taken from a nearby brook (a place you might find if you wander off and look around)
- a tradition of limited editions and collaborations with other brands creating unique and diverse brand experiences
Oris watches have a honest right to be with you on your journey. They have a purposeful design, with features and functions that make sense.
They are not luxury in the sense of indulgence or showing off wealth.

Oris most prominent watches all have something different about them and never seem to dive into the polluted waters of design laziness. Sure, they share similarities with a lot of other watches, but none of them are copies or homages to other watches.
Oris is real.
Category: approachable luxury
Oris is positioned at the lower end of luxury watchmakers, but it is important to remember that it definitely still within the luxury category. For most people, they are still expensive watches and are sold around other expensive watches and products.
In this category, there are many twists and turns on what seems to be differentiators and what are hygiene factors.
In-house movements being one particularly interesting area.
From the outside, it seems that watchmakers love in-house movements. It is a clear-cut differentiator for many and it is easy to understand why: it is an ingredient that screams “craftsmanship” and often it creates a stronger value proposition in terms of improved specs on precision and power reserve. That a watch is accurate and go for a long time without stopping is a pretty important part of the user experience, and it is important to put words in buyers conversations with others (and themselves to justify their purchase)
Oris is also starting to make their own movements and the newly released BigCrown Pro Pilot X offers another occasion to tell the story about its calibers. More on that particular watch later.
On the other hand, in-house not always a good thing and a lot of Oris fans actually love that they use Sellita movements in their lower priced watches. It lowers retail price and can be fixed anywhere. They are not afraid to use their watches as they where intended to, in contrast to more expensive watches with the same purpose. It justifies the value-for-money argument superbly.
The fauxtina craze — nostalgia on the wrist
Oris is a brand with a long history and a long line of interesting models. Some of the classics have been reissued, and one of them, the Diver 65 captured the internet-fueled fauxtina craze we are now seeing the tail end of like no other.
(“faux patina” — watches that are vintage inspired, reissues of old models or new models copying old designs. Read more about it here.)
For people in the online watch community, fauxtina is something you need to take make up your mind about. Its a thing.
For normal people, it is something you just like or not. And normal people do not experience watch brands like watch people do. Normal people just see 10 or 20 watch brands lined up next to each other. Oris then being the not-so-known one. Oris is the other one that is not Tag or Certina or Longines, not Rolex, not Seiko.
Either case, Oris want the revenue that comes from selling a lot of watches to geeks and noobs.
And thats what they have managed the latter years.
