The fastest and most secure way to protect the watches you love.
We've minimized the paperwork and maximized protection, so you can stop worrying about your watches and focus on enjoying them.
In most cases, you'll get a personalized quote in seconds and your policy kicks in immediately.
Wherever you are on planet Earth, your watches are protected. Rest easy and travel safely.
If you suffer a covered loss, there's no deductible and no gimmicks. Ever.
Each of your watches is covered up to 150% of the insured value (up to the total value of the policy).
The fastest and most secure way to protect the watches you love.
We've minimized the paperwork and maximized protection, so you can stop worrying about your watches and focus on enjoying them.
In most cases, you'll get a personalized quote in seconds and your policy kicks in immediately.
Wherever you are on planet Earth, your watches are protected. Rest easy and travel safely.
If you suffer a covered loss, there's no deductible and no gimmicks. Ever.
Each of your watches is covered up to 150% of the insured value (up to the total value of the policy).
The fastest and most secure way to protect the watches you love.
We've minimized the paperwork and maximized protection, so you can stop worrying about your watches and focus on enjoying them.
In most cases, you'll get a personalized quote in seconds and your policy kicks in immediately.
Wherever you are on planet Earth, your watches are protected. Rest easy and travel safely.
If you suffer a covered loss, there's no deductible and no gimmicks. Ever.
Each of your watches is covered up to 150% of the insured value (up to the total value of the policy).
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The Danish-inspired brand is making waves with horological sustainability efforts.
This story was originally published on January 20, 2022. We're republishing it now in honor of World Oceans Day.
As an outdoorsman, I feel a constant urge to protect the places I most cherish. And while it is important to me personally, I don't often beat the drum regarding sustainability in our hobby. I've always considered watches (which can last for decades) low on the list of environmental offenders, especially compared to disposable consumer goods that go straight into the landfill – or, worse, the ocean.
But we're at a point now where the planet needs all the help it can get. Particularly from brands that reach a massive audience. That's where Skagen comes in.
Skagen – not a brand we cover often on HODINKEE – is setting a positive example by collecting plastics from the ocean that eventually become the case and bracelet for their Aaren Ocean watches. And because it's a part of the Fossil group, it's operating at a scale that should inspire the industry – businesses and collectors, alike – to take notice. Small independents championing sustainability is certainly a positive trend, but if you want to make a big difference, scale counts.
"Over the past couple years, Skagen's actually been on a journey trying to replace some of our traditional watch components with more responsible materials. That's just something that, honestly, we believe in," says Ian Miller, the brand's director of concept and design. Read on to see how the company is harvesting plastic floating in the ocean – then turning it into the watches you'll find in malls across America and beyond.
The Andaman Sea and the ecosystems that it harbors are meaningful to me, personally. I did a few live-aboard trips around the Similan Islands and beyond in the mid-2010s. When I went back last year, I saw so much more plastic in the ocean. Skagen's efforts are designed to help reverse that trend.
The brand works with an organization called #tide, which collects plastic waste floating in the seas around Southeast Asia. #tide trains fishermen and pays them a fair wage to collect all sorts of plastic, like polyethylene terephthalate plastics (PET), polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene (PE). Many developing nations struggle with sustainability efforts because the economy forces people to put making a livelihood over the environment, but in this case #tide has managed to allow fishermen to profit and clean up the ocean while they're at it.
All that collected plastic, from plastic bags to water bottles to COVID-19 medical supplies, is sent to Switzerland and processed by the Jan & Oscar Foundation and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), who transform it into granules resembling Dippin' Dots ice cream.
This material can be made into textile yarn or filament used for 3D printing – or repurposed into consumer goods, including shoes, apparel, home interiors, and yes, watches.
The #tide granules are shaped into watch cases specifically for Skagen. Miller notes that although injection molding plastic is a relatively straightforward process, #tide and Skagen have developed a proprietary process that involves mixing the plastic with fiber for strength and pigment for color. It's then injected into the molds.
The dial, case, and bracelet are all plastic that was once floating in the ocean. The watches come in army green, grey, black, and white, and ring in at a friendly $115. Like many Skagen models, they have a relatively understated aesthetic. The fun is in the colors and, of course, the materials.
The final assembly of the watches takes place in Asia before they're packaged and shipped around the world for retail distribution. Skagen senior designer Cory Vogel created the wave pattern on the dial of the Aaren line to encapsulate the idea that essentially the entire watch was made from ocean-bound plastic.
To Miller, the whole exercise was a test for Skagen to see how much of a watch could be made without using any virgin plastic, while maintaining the same quality standards they'd adhere to had they used traditional materials. "You can certainly use something that's been repurposed and regenerated and it works the exact same way," he says. "It's not better or worse – it's the same."
The Skagen Aaren Ocean range is available directly from Skagen, or from department stores, such as Macy’s and Nordstrom.
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