Switzerland is without a doubt the sacred land for watches and horology, from the roots of early protestant Europe and the influx of migrant goldsmiths that needed to move to escape the catholic church, to the harboring alpine country, to now being the biggest player in the game when it comes to tradition and exports. It is possible to debate the capital of horology, whether it’s Geneva, Bern, or La Chaux-de-Fonds. No matter where you go in Switzerland, you will find the ticking of a well-crafted mechanical watch.

If we look outside the adopted home of watchmaking, we see that all around the world this industry flourishes, whether it is in Japan where you have Grand Seiko, Orient, Casio, or of course traditional Seiko, the asian market is a big one at all costs and always extremely fair for the price. Despite all of this, the glory of Switzerland and the honor of Japan, there is no place quite like Glashütte.

For over 175 years, German watchmaking has been known for this small mountain village. Located in the mountains of eastern Germany and just a short trip from the city of Dresden, you find a magical place of industry. In this town of only 7.000 people the tradition and sacricity of horology flourishes. In this insanely small town, you have massive brands, the likes of A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte Original, Union Glashütte, Mühle Glashütte, and the topic of conversation today, and possibly my favorite brand, NOMOS Glashütte.

In 1990, the dream of NOMOS Glashütte became a reality, founded by Roland Schwertner. At only 35 years old at the time of writing this article NOMOS is one of the youngest established watch brand out there, at the time the founding of NOMOS was a risk, remember we are only a few years removed from the quartz crisis and the effects of it on the future of the watchmaking industry is not yet known. Still, Roland charges through and founds this great company, and we all personally thank him for it, despite our wallets not being fans.

In 1992 we recived the first NOMOS watches, they came in four distinct watch families that are still a part of the brand today, Tangente, Ludwig, Orion and finally Tetra. Originally these watches and the NOMOS brand used ETA calibers, for a brand that prides it self on their own in-house manufactured calibers it’s good to see that they had to work their way up to that standard through smart design and decision making from the highest rank.

In the best year of all time, 2005 (my birth year), NOMOS sealed their prospects for the foreseeable future by moving from ETA calibers to their own in-house calibers that we see them flaunt so proudly and with good reason, might I add to this day. Currently, they are one of the best movement manufacturers out there, especially when you factor in the price that their watches go for. They also don’t lock themselves in a corner by only doing manual or automatic, as they create both types of movements with grace and perfection.

Let’s keep the conversations about movements going, not only are they reliable, beautiful, elegant, and accurate, but they also uphold my favorite thing about dress watches, their movements are insanely thin. Take their most basic movement, for example, the Alpha handwound movement, which is accurate, reliable, and incredibly thin, measuring 2.6 mm in thickness, which means it is thinner than three credit cards. But that is a handwound movement; they are supposed to be thin since you don’t need to fit an automatic module on them.

For the three people who had that thought, let me introduce you to the DUW 3203 caliber. This is the new worldtimer caliber they released at Watches and Wonders this year. These movements are insane, they keep the principles of NOMOS to the maximum the caliber is beautiful, accurate, reliable and for an automatic watch with a world timer complication, only 9.9mm in thickness, that number is not just the thickness of the caliber, that number is the thickness of the watch itself. That number is second to none at that price range and above when it comes to the thickness of an automatic world timer.

NOMOS is one of those brands where I wait with excitement for their next piece, regardless of which line it is in. The way they play with designs and colors is amazing, and I am always shocked to see how deeply they resonate with me, not just as a fan or a collector but as a person who uses watches to capture moments and feelings.