Time+Tide’s Nivada ChaosMaster Returns With 3 Dial Colours, As A Box Set Trio

Time + Tide, our friends from the other side of the globe, live in a an upside world – of course they do, and not only because they come from Australia. The reason why I’m allowing myself to do the joke is simple; they’ve done it themselves first, and they even materialized it in a trio of watches made together with watchmaker Nivada and slightly wacky designer Seconde/Seconde last year. The name of the watch; the Nivada ChaosMaster (because it was based on the Chronomaster Aviator Sea Diver). The whole concept, upside-down printings and a running second with an emoji figure… Well, the T+T ChaosMaster is back as a trio of watches, all included in a box set and with new dial colours. 

Last year’s concept, initiated by Andrew (the man behind Time+Tide) and Romaric (a.k.a Seconde/Seconde), was refreshingly weird, to say the least. A bunch of watch nerds brainstorming in order to bring to reality a watch that is… surreal. They were clear about the watch; in a world where mechanical watches are as essential as they are absurd, there’s nothing wrong in making them even more absurd… Pragmatically irrelevant. And the result came up in the shape of a redesigned Nivada Chronomaster – 38.5mm case, historic design inspired by the 1960s, elements from racing watches, pilot’s watches, dive watches, all blend in a single watch with tachymeter scale and 12-hour and 60-minute rotating bezel, and a hand-wound Sellita chrono.

The twist (quite literally) had to be found on the dials of three editions. The text on the dial has been tilted 180-degree so it’s entirely upside down – and it goes for the logo, the name of the watch, and even the Swiss mention. The display, in order to make the watch usable, remained classic (fortunately). All indications are running normal, and are placed where they should. The other twist has to be seen on the small seconds counter, topped by a disc shaped like an emoji. Designed by Romaric, they are either “Cool” with sunglasses, “Swirly” or “Sigh of relief” and are continuously spinning on the running seconds sub-dial.

This year, these cool and unusual designs are back, with some minor updates. Coming next to the 3 times 33 pieces of last year is a box set trio of watches with the same “Swirly”, “Sigh of Relief” and “Sunglasses Dude” upside-down dials, but now with three different colours – the classic “Sigh of Relief” black is joined by a white dial Swirly and a brown Sunglasses dude. The funny thing is that this trio was already announced back in November last year, when the initial models were launched. But due to shortage and an issue encountered with packaging, it’s only available now.

Only produced in 5 set of watches, the Nivada ChaosMaster Time+Tide x Seconde/Seconde Trio is now available for orders from Time+Tide and priced at AUD 9,500, USD 6,475 or EUR 5,800. More details here.