Timex x Nigel Cabourn Desert Watch Highlights Accessible Field Watch Style

Timex might not have the luxury draw of many watchmakers, nor do they have the reputation for fun, innovative designs like Swatch. Timex has no MoonSwatch attracting headlines more than half a year after its launch. However, if they keep making stuff like the new Timex x Nigel Cabourn Desert Watch, I’ll keep being a fan.

Stylistically, the Desert Watch is the successor to 2021’s Timex collaboration with Todd Snyder on the MK1 Bootcamp. It has the same sector style layout with 24-hour timing capability split across peripheral and central hour scales. It also bears the classic military broadhead arrow insignia, although on the Nigel Cabourn edition it takes a more prominent position at 12 o’clock.

Nigel Cabourn, for those wondering, is a British fashion designer known for his outerwear and vintage style apparel. If ‘retro-tactical’ was an artistic movement, both Nigel Cabourn’s work and this Timex would be peak examples. Its colour palette is predominantly sandy tones, not that you’d expect anything else from a piece called the Desert Watch. It enhances the military feel of the piece, ready to mobilise in the Mojave or any other desert landscape with its fresh fatigues.

Is the Timex x Nigel Cabourn Desert Watch a complicated watch? No. Is it visually revolutionary? Also no, although it’s certainly attractive. Is it an accessible, durable, reliable watch that you’d be happy to wear day in and day out? Yeah, it is, it’s priced at only £169. And that’s all a Timex needs to do to be great.

Featuring a white military-style dial with army green markings and the broad arrow design synonymous with the Cabourn military branding, presented with a neutral strap made with Ventile cotton, a natural barrier against destruction during inclement weather — This set comes with an additional striped slip-thru strap and is packaged in our iconic military-style carrying case – a set deserving of the past but stylized for today.