Far from the gilded showrooms and haute horology of Geneva, the Windup Watch Fair is absent the wristwatch industry’s reputational snobbery. There are no tourbillion movements or white gold cases on display. Here, Hublot might as well be a four-letter word, and Rolex waiting lists are someone else’s problem.
Instead, the Windup Watch Fair serves as an annual jamboree for watch enthusiasts who have embraced, and even championed, the rise of microbrands — smaller, independent companies that lean toward novel design and more sensible prices.
Jonathan Ferrer, the founder of Brew Watch Co., a microbrand in Hoboken, N.J., knows to leave his blazer at home.
“I think the appeal of these shows is that they’re so authentic and approachable,” he said in a recent interview. “Your audience just wants you to know that you’re with them.”
The 10th edition of the Windup Watch Fair is set for this weekend at Center415, a 30,000-square-foot event space in Midtown Manhattan. Organizers are expecting about 150 brands and more than 10,000 attendees at the event which began in 2015.
“From the beginning of Windup,” said Blake Malin, one of the event’s founders, “we’ve been like, ‘It can’t just get busier.’ And it just gets busier. It’s become this touch point that a lot of enthusiasts feel like they need to be a part of.”
In 2011, Mr. Malin was working as an institutional fund-raiser for nonprofits when he decided that he wanted to buy a watch. He recruited Zach Weiss, a friend from college, to help him do some research online.
“That was when we noticed that there was really no one talking about affordable watches in the way that we wanted to talk about them,” Mr. Malin said.
They soon created Worn & Wound as a blog for watch enthusiasts. Even as the site began to draw an audience and operate as an online retailer, Mr. Malin felt out of place at watch events, which were primarily the province of luxury brands that catered to the 1 percent.
If Mr. Malin was uncomfortable, he wondered, how did average consumers feel?
At the same time, Mr. Malin had become a regular at Pop-Up Flea, a now-defunct temporary market in Lower Manhattan for small and often independent men’s wear brands. It was anything but ostentatious.
“They were always, in our minds, the best of that type of space,” said Mr. Malin, who recalled conferring with his business partners after one such visit to Pop-Up Flea. “We decided that we needed to do that for watches.”
In 2015, Mr. Ferrer was starting Brew when he learned from friends that Worn & Wound was organizing an event for small brands (to sell watches) and for enthusiasts (to buy them).
That October, the Windup Watch Fair made its debut when it occupied a small storefront in SoHo. Mr. Ferrer was among the representatives from 18 brands, and lines formed outside each day.
It struck Mr. Malin as the physical manifestation of a growing community of watch fans who, until then, had interacted only online. “It was the nerdy folks from the forums,” Mr. Ferrer said, laughing.
Mr. Malin described the fair as “approachable and low-key,” as if it were a direct counterpoint to the stuffier milieus occupied by many of the industry’s behemoths.
For smaller, direct-to-consumer brands that have neither big marketing budgets nor, for the most part, retail spaces of their own, the exposure that the fair offers can be especially valuable.
“The bigger brands don’t need to do this — the Omegas of the world,” Mr. Ferrer said. “They’re reaching tens of millions of people every day.”
Oris has been a lead sponsor since the fair’s inception and, as a well-established company from Switzerland, something of an outlier. V.J. Geronimo, the chief executive of Oris who oversees operations in the Americas, cited the value of interacting with consumers.
“You want to hear what they have to say,” Mr. Geronimo said, “and not every brand does that.”
Since expanding to San Francisco in 2018, the Windup Watch Fair has added events in Chicago and Dallas. Its growth has mirrored that of many microbrands.
Back when Mr. Ferrer started Brew, he was selling about 150 watches a year. He now sells more than 15,000, he said, and while his company conducts “99 percent” of its business online, the Windup Watch Fair remains an essential part of his annual calendar.
The event, Mr. Ferrer said, doubles as an incubator for the exchange of ideas among like-minded start-ups.
“You might think it would be more competitive,” he said, “but I’ve had so many valuable conversations. It’s like a master class with your fellow watch-brand owners.”
It also gives him a chance to be a part of a larger community, Mr. Ferrer said, and customers notice if he is not there.
“People will question your authenticity as an independent watch brand,” he said, “and whether you’ve outgrown this space. But if you’re there, it shows that you’re still one of them.”
Scott Cacciola writes features and profiles of people in the worlds of sports and entertainment for the Styles section of The Times.
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