Our Story

Welcome to a new era

Is it really a bad idea to sell at fair prices?
Leather Transparent Bg

American Wristwatch Company Founded in 2014.

Since 2014 BRATHWAIT has been the world’s only transparent watchmaker promising elegantly designed, premium timepieces for men and women, without the luxury markup. BRATHWAIT eliminates industry shortcuts and cheap solutions with its focus on quality manufacturing and honest pricing.

Simple

The Golden Ratio: you can find it in roses, seashells and the Milky Way. Now, the famed Fibonacci sequence is in every aspect of Brathwait watch design.

Transparent

By pulling back the curtains on modern watchmaking we're aiming to do away with industry short-cuts and cheap solutions; never compromising the product quality, always cutting the costs.

Luxury

We use the best quality materials as the high-end designer brands, but we offer our products at a fraction of their price.

An honest look at modern watchmaking

Cost Of Watch Components Brathwait

We're bringing transparency to modern watchmaking.

By pulling back the curtains, we're aiming to do away with industry short-cuts and cheap solutions. This commitment doesn't make us the biggest, nor does it make us the fastest growing company, quite the contrary.

But we believe that qualities like honesty and altruism are desperately needed these days, and that is a foundation worth building a company on.

We use the same materials and same factories as $500 to $3000 brands, but we sell at a fraction of the price.

Some call it stupid, we call it fair.

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The materials

Premium quality at a fair price, sparing no details in the process.
Quartz Straight

Classic slim

Icon Sapphire Glass

Sapphire glass

Sapphire glass is the number one component that luxury watches have in common. It is scratch resistant and highly durable. Sapphire glass is available in the $4-$15 range. The price is determined by the hardness of the glass. Harder glass is more expensive to cut because the cutting blade is a diamond.

$14.15
Icon Swiss Quartz

Swiss movement

Our Swiss made Ronda movement is the same movement that is used in $500+ quartz watches. An inexpensive quartz movement of good quality costs below $2. An excellent quartz movement with shock resistance and extra long battery life of up to 40 months costs $10.

$10.00
Icon Strap

Italian Strap

Our Italian leather straps are made from top grain leather. Top grain leather comes from the smallest and least readily available part of the hide, but it is also the strongest. About 3/5 of the cost is the band material and the rest is due to stainless steel buckles and the rose gold coating that is applied to them.

$18.5
Icon Stainless Steel

Stainless steel case

A top quality stainless steel case costs $9,70 to produce. Steel cases are made up of a steel quality typically in the range of 304 to 916. The number does not necessarily reflect the product’s quality or price, but identifies the mixture of minerals.

$9.70
Icon Rose Gold

Coating

The coating of our rose gold case is a mixture of pure gold and copper. The plating on steel cases are measured in the thickness of uM, one uM is 1/1000 of a 1 mm. Our high grade electro enhanced PVD plating lasts basically forever.

$11.25
Icon The Dial

Dial

The dial is made up of a thin metal plate with a light beige coating. The components to any given dial costs about $2.70. The remaining cost is due to the precision needed to assemble the parts. This process requires specialised and expensive equipment.

$3.75

Other

In addition to materials, every order has non-material related expenses such as customs, fulfillment & shipping, storage, product box, transaction fees (VISA etc) and other bank related expenses in the amount of $25 - $30 per order.

$25 - 30

The beginning

Richard Brathwait
Brathwait

The inspiration for our company came from a pioneering man called Richard Brathwait who lived in the 1600s. He was a writer, poet and visionary. He changed the societal dynamics in 1631 when he published “The English Gentleman”, the first documented mention of a Gentleman and Gentlewoman, and a guide on how to behave with honorable manners and respect for everyone regardless of societal class.

In our appreciation of the Brathwait legacy, our timepieces are created in line with these traits; honesty, integrity and transparency. Making us the world’s only transparent watchmaker.

Book Cover

The English gentleman

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