Five years ago, none of us had ever heard of a watermelon watch. Think about that for a second. In the timeframe in which most watch brands are still finding their footing, Studio Underd0g has gone from plucky newcomer to one of the poster boys of British watchmaking. Their drops cause the kind of fervour you’d expect for Supreme’s latest collab sneakers and the hype train just keeps on rolling.
It’s worryingly easy to look back at 2021 and see the Watermel0n and Studio Underd0g as a whole as an obvious part of the zeitgeist. In the middle of COVID, collectors were looking for accessible watches with a bit of much-needed levity to them, poring over images online like addicts scrambling for a fix. In hindsight, that success seems inevitable. At the time?
“Absolutely not!” Talking to multi-hypenate founder Rich Benc in a typically windswept field on the South Downs, those early days are still clear in his mind. Which is fair enough; they weren’t actually long ago. “Studio Underd0g started as a genuine passion project, and I am fairly sure most sensible people would have questioned the idea of launching a watermelon-themed column-wheel chronograph. At the time, there was no grand plan beyond seeing whether the idea resonated.”
And resonate it did, with new collections and collaborations driving the hype up further. Even I queued for a Gimlet. But hype alone does not a brand make. And in those early days it was easy to assume that the collector zeal would die off like so many monthly Moonswatches. But what the hypebeasts of the watch world were less tuned into was what Studio Underd0g were up to in the background.
In 2021, Studio Underd0g watches started to be assembled here in the UK, specifically at Reading-based workshop Horologium. Studio Underd0g were still glass transparent about where their parts were built – predominantly China alongside their Seagull movements – but the move indicated something. The brand wanted to do more at home. So, why?
“When I launched Studio Underd0g,” explains Rich Benc while fighting his wind-blown umbrella, “I was very aware that customers were effectively backing the brand before it really existed. Because of that, trust mattered more than anything else. A big part of earning that trust was knowing that if something ever went wrong with a watch, there was a proper after-sales system in place from day one. That’s where Horologium originally came in.”
It makes sense; you can’t control something half a world away, let alone something like watchmaking. But you might have another big question: why exactly were we talking in the middle of a field in the South Downs?
Well, because there’s some nice countryside that way. As for why we were in a field at all, we were talking on the set of Studio Underd0g’s shiny new campaign, ‘Assembled in Britain’, trying not to get in the way and the inimitable Andrew Morgan battled the elements to shoot a watchmaker at his bench. On top of a hill. In typical British weather.
Because arguably the biggest news for our homegrown watch industry for the past few years is that Studio Underd0g has actually bought Horologium.
It’s hard to understate how big a move this is for the brand. Back in the early days, it wouldn’t have meant much, given Studio Underd0g’s numbers made getting one of their much-hyped Watermel0ns surprisingly hard. But these days they’re not some small microbrand; in 2025, they built and assembled exactly 14,602 watches. And as their numbers increased, “we realised we were both slightly exposed,” says Rich. “We were relying on a capability we did not own, and they were building a business around a brand they did not control. Aligning more closely made sense.”
At first, that meant a minority stake in 2024. But at the tail end of 2025 Studio Underd0g went all in, becoming one of the very few brands that owns their own assembly – and the only one of their scale in Britain.
Before we get into precisely what that means for Britain’s favourite canine (sorry Snoopy), perhaps we should take a step back and take a closer look at what ‘Assembled in Great Britain’ really means. Assembled isn’t the same as Made, though it certainly hasn’t stopped plenty of brands blurring that line harder than a Mondrian exhibition after a bottle of bourbon. Fortunately, Rich is well aware of the distinction.
“In plain terms, it means that once the components arrive, the responsibility for turning them into a finished watch sits entirely with us. One of the pillars of the Studio Underd0g brand is transparency. Even if we technically met the legal requirements to use terms like ‘British Made’ or ‘Made in Great Britain’, we felt it was more honest to be specific. ‘Assembled in Great Britain’ tells customers exactly which part of the process we are responsible for, without overstating it.”
None of this is to say that assembly isn’t important. Hell, you could argue that it’s the most important part of the watchmaking process, at least at the accessible level Studio Underd0g operates at. Ever heard those nightmare stories of finding hairs in your movement? That’s down to assembly. Loose links in the bracelet, missing screws, scratched crystals, all of that is picked up during the process of putting the watch together. It’s not the suppliers’ fault; bad things can happen in a cargo plane hold. But for most brands there’s this necessary assumption that the watches will get to wrists in perfect condition. That’s not an assumption that Studio Underd0g need to make any more.
It’s worth noting that the move perhaps represents a bigger opportunity than a bit of QA for one brand. While everything is on the up, there’s one thing we’re still lacking here in the UK: skills. For Rich, bringing Horologium into the fold is a chance to put his finger on that particular scale.
“By choosing to keep this kind of work in Great Britain, we are making a deliberate investment in skills, infrastructure, and long-term capability rather than applying a label for marketing value. In the context of the recent resurgence in British watch and clockmaking, it feels like a practical and honest way for us to contribute.”
That said, Rich himself isn’t going to be behind the bench any time soon. “Would you judge me if I said I have never assembled a Studio Underd0g watch?” he admits. “I did recently attempt to fit a handset to an 02SERIES watch and very quickly learned that two coffees beforehand was a mistake.”
Having tried my hand more than once, I can confidently say that assembling a watch is far from easy. Granted I’ve fallen into the coffee trap too and have a far from steady hand at the best of times, but I can find my way around a manual-wind ETA easily enough. A Seagull? Who knows, but I’d give it a try – and with Studio Underd0g’s plans for Horologium, you can, too.
Part of the transparency behind what will come to be known the D0ghouse (obviously) is transparency, and nothing gives you a better insight into what Assembled in Britain means than trying it yourself. And this will be one of the only opportunities you can have to not just see watches be assembled, but get your own hands oily.
Plans are still up in the air as to exactly what the experience will look like, but given Rich’s tongue is never far from his cheek, expect something closer to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory (the Roald Dahl version rather than haunting Glaswegian effort).
More importantly (at least for die-hard fans), there’s a special edition watch available directly from the manufacture. If you’ve taken a good look at our cover, you might recognise a colourway you’ve not seen before, a fun inversion of the classic Watermel0n. This is the Guava and it’s already one of my favourite SU colourways.
As I said, the brand’s still working on the details of precisely what the visit will look like, how many people they’ll let through the doors and what level of watchmaking they can get to grips with. But expect to find out more sooner rather than later: “we will be taking pre-registrations during British Watchmakers’ Day on 7th March,” says Rich, “and then opening booking more broadly once we understand demand.” I imagine demand will be pretty intense.
Even if you can’t justify a visit, it goes without saying that this acquisition will have a noticeable impact on the brand as a whole. It’s not just about securing assembly, though that makes perfect business sense. It’s not just about legitimising the brand (though as Rich says, “If that results in people seeing Studio Underd0g as more serious and credible, that feels like a natural outcome rather than the goal”). At the bottom line it’s about creating a better, more accessible product.
“Limited editions will still exist,” says Rich, “but the core range should become easier to buy and easier to live with. Servicing and after-sales support are strengthened rather than reinvented, and pricing is driven by product improvements rather than structure. Overall, the goal is simple: make it easier to engage with the brand and reassuring to know there is long-term support behind it.”
Studio Underd0g isn’t just the biggest British watchmaking success story in history. They’ve proven there’s a hunger for cool, creative watches and crystal-clear transparency in a way that no other brand has really nailed. They haven’t just played to the zeitgeist; they’ve become it. And that’s just the last five years. What about the next?
“By 2030,” says Rich, “I would like Studio Underd0g to feel like a business that has matured without losing its curiosity. I am not motivated by being the biggest or the loudest, but by being dependable and creatively interesting.
“If our core collection is consistently available, our limited projects still feel special, and our manufacturing capability in Great Britain is stable, well-staffed, and quietly excellent, that would feel like real success. If we’ve continued to train people from scratch, built long-term careers, and kept knowledge inside the business, even better.
“Ultimately, success would look like trust. Trust from customers, trust from the team, and trust from partners. If we can look back and say we grew steadily, made sensible decisions, and never had to apologise for cutting corners, then I think we will have done something worth being proud of.”
If that all sounds very grown-up, don’t worry. Apparently, standing in a rainy field trying to get some shots of a shivering, moustachioed watchmaker putting together a fruit-themed watch is a sensible decision. I mean, this is still Studio Underd0g.
More details at Studio Underd0g.
