Studio Underd0g 04SERIES Calendar Watch Review

Studio Underd0g has launched its fourth family of wristwatches to sit alongside its 01SERIES chronograph, 02SERIES field watch and 03SERIES monopusher. The new collection is the 04SERIES Calendar, introducing the British brand’s first calendar display and debuting a brand new exclusive movement. We’ve been hands-on with the complete four watch collection to learn all about it.

Out of the box, the first thing that punches you in the gut is the colours. The dials of the whole collection are incredibly intense thanks in large part to a new satin polish finishing that catches the light from any angle. It’s impossible to overstate just how shiny the dials are. The four colourways are: ‘Cloud10’ in silver with red accents, ‘Arabian Sky’ in copper with blue accents, ‘Shepherd’s Delight’ in red with purple accents, and ‘0vercast’ in navy blue with orange accents.

Because of the polished finish in the centre, the exact tones that you see shift and change quite significantly based on the lighting and surroundings in which you are viewing them. The Shepherd’s Delight and Arabian Sky don’t shift quite so much because their colours are already quite dominant, but the 0vercast appears to swap from black to dark blue quite easily. The Cloud10 is positively chameleonic because being silver, it picks up any colour that’s being reflected in its face like a mirror. In direct light it’s clearly silver, but in the dark or outside in winter sunlight it’s much bluer, and when I angle it towards the terracotta plant pot of the office house plant, it reflects the orange. It’s a lot of fun to play with.

Zooming out from the colours to focus on the layout of the 04SERIES Calendar dials, they feature a moonphase subdial at 6 o’clock that has a polished outer ring and a circular grained centre. The moonphase disc itself is in the primary accent colour of each colourway with the moon itself depicted in a slightly lighter tone. The rest of the display then features a triple layer of timing scales with railway hours and minutes closest to the middle of the display, then a weekends indicator, and lastly a retrograde pointer date. The retrograde style has been used so that the pointer hand never overlaps the moonphase.

The weekend indicator is the most unusual part of the display because it’s not a common function for a calendar watch. The only other example I can think of is the Krayon Anyday. Essentially, it consists of a series of boxes that correspond to the dates on the date scale next to it – if the box is blank, it’s a weekday and if it’s filled with the primary accent colour, it’s a weekend. You manually set it at the start of each month by rotating where the accented boxes are using the crown. You’ll also have to set the pointer date when a month ends before 31 days. Overall, it does take a bit of set-up but once it’s going it helps keep track of how far you are through the month and indeed how far you are through each week.

Focussing on the case now, it’s available at two sizes: 37mm and 38.5mm, both measuring 13.5mm in thickness. We have the 37mm collection here, and honestly, I really like the size. On paper it’s much smaller than the watches I normally wear but that just enhances the dressy vibe of the high sheen polish. The steel is finished with a combination of brushed and polished finishing.

The 04SERIES Calendar has a 44.5mm lug-to-lug that keeps it comfortable on the wrist with its pin buckle leather strap. The strap colours are individual to each colourway: navy for 0vercast, dark green for Arabian Sky, light brown for Cloud10, and dark brown for Shepherd’s Delight.

Undoing the strap and turning the watch over lets you look at the exhibition caseback. Through the window you can see the brand new Seagull ST-2115B automatic calibre for Studio Underd0g, an exclusive calibre built specially for the brand. It operates at 4 Hz with a daily accuracy of -10/+15 seconds per day and a 42-hour power reserve. It’s finished with perlage in a combination of plain silver in the centre and black coated around the edge.

All four variants are priced at £750 with free shipping worldwide, available from November 17th. I really think that this is a collection you need to see in the metal to form your own opinion of. It’s very easy at first to make a sweeping statement that these watches don’t have the usual whimsy that we’ve come to expect from Studio Underd0g – it’s a fairly serious dress watch calendar. But when you spend time with them, you begin to appreciate that the colours are a little bit quirky and unusual (especially in combination with their respective accent colours) and the weekend indicator changes how it interacts with the passage of time. There are no laugh out loud Watermel0n puns, but it’s still a fun collection.