Korean Watch brands. Your guide to Korean made watches
I’m a big watch guy, I obsess over the newest models and gawk at the beautiful watches that I see over on r/watches. I also happen to live in Korea, which until the 1990s had a very active watch culture. Watches are often given as gifts to men on their wedding day and as gifts from their wives or In-laws.
With the rise of the internet and the new generation preferring digital means of telling the time (as well as changing fashion). Young people no longer buy from Korean watch brands and so a once thriving watch culture has dwindled.
But there are still many Korean watch brands around, some are small and have little to no online presence, and some have larger followings. I wanted to cover a few of the best Korean watch brands that people from all over the world can purchase and enjoy. Some of these brands have been around for decades, while some are just starting out.
Romanson (로만손)
Let’s start off with one of the more famous Korean watch brands, Romanson. Romanson was founded in 1988 and has been one of the top Korean watch producers ever since. They usually make more unique pieces and focus on the mid level Korean market.
Tisell (티셀)
Tisell has been recognized in recent years for their Submariner clone, but they do build a lot of other watches as well. There isn’t much info around their origins but my guess is they started around 2011.
Harriot (해리엇)
Harriot is an interesting brand, as its run by a huge corporation in Korea (shinsaegae) and tries to make itself an older brand than it appears. Harriot claims their watches are designed based on famous bridges in Korea, although if I am honest, I can’t tell that from the design of the watches themselves. The watches are fairly nice looking though and are handmade.
Rolens (로렌스)
Rolens is one of the oldest Korean watch companies dating back to the 1950s. They are most notable for creating 2 presidential watches (Roh moo Hyun and Lee myung Bak). Nowadays they mostly make gold coloured watches that, if I’m being honest, look a little tacky.
Foce (포체)
A fairly newer brand, having started in 1997, Foce creates mostly budget fashion watches with a few nicer pieces rounding out their collections. At the time of writing they have a partnership with a British football team called Tottenham Hotspur and have created special watches based around a few key players.
Dogfight (독파이트)
Dogfight is probably one of the most interesting of the brands listed here. Their watches are designed around World war 2 planes and try to emulate the aesthetic of both the planes and pilots watches.They seem pretty new on the market, as I only first learned about them while doing research for this article.
Amy Eujeny
A pretty unique brand in Korea as They have almost no online presence and I cannot actually find out how much the watches actually cost. They advertise themselves as a high end luxury brand, so my assumption is that prices are expensive and the watches are very high quality. They seem to try to style themselves as a Korean Richard Mille.
Over the course of researching this article I learned a lot about Korean watch brands and discovered a few I had never heard about. Makes me excited to see what new Korean watch brands spring out over the next few years.
