The First Great Indie Watch of 2026 Has Arrived

Over the past few years, very few brands have generated as much hype as Toledano & Chan and its brutalist-inspired debut, the b/1. All chunky shapes and hard lines, the b/1 looks like the forbidden lovechild of a Rolex Midas and Boston City Hall (although, according to its designer, it’s actually inspired by a window of NYC’s Breuer Building.) It’s not for everyone, sure, but whether you love its design or not, you can’t complain that it’s just another steel sports watch. Their latest release, the b/1.3r, keeps the brutalism train rolling with the brand’s signature case rendered in titanium and enclosing a rippled 18k gold dial.

Toledano & Chan is the creation of Philip Toledano, an NYC-based conceptual artist better known as @misterenthusiast, and Alfred Chan, a Hong Kong-based watch collector. The brand emerged two years ago when its co-founders, who bonded online over 1970s architecture and integrated bracelet watches, decided to create their own watch without ever having met in person. Following the success of the b/1, which launched (and promptly sold out) in May 2024, Toledano & Chan has released two subsequent versions, each a new riff on the b/1’s distinctive case shape.

​The b/1 launched with a lapis lazuli dial—a gold-speckled blue gemstone favored by brands like Rolex and Piaget in the swinging ’70s—and was quickly followed by the b/1.2, a version in Tahitian mother-of-pearl. Lest anyone think Toledano & Chan were planning to coast on the success of these first two launches, however, the brand announced yet another installment in November of the same year, this time with a dial and case made from meteorite. The world’s first all-meteorite production watch, the one-off b/1m, sold for more than $35,000 at a charity auction the following month.