An Old-School Gatekeeper Opens the Door to Watchmaking’s Future
Wempe, the historic German retailer known for curating horological heavyweights, just made Urwerk its exclusive independent watch partner in Germany. And for a brand as unapologetically sci-fi as Urwerk, it’s a surprising plot twist.
Founded in 1997 by watchmaker Felix Baumgartner and artist Martin Frei, Urwerk has carved a lane of its own. Its creations are part timekeeper, part kinetic sculpture.
More spaceship than wristwatch, Urwerk's creations include Satellite hour displays, rotating cubes, and complications that reference orbital physics or Han Solo’s favorite ship.
Wempe, by contrast, is a legacy brand with roots that run deep in the past of watchmaking. Founded in 1878, the company started with marine chronometers before becoming a highly respected retailer. Today, it operates one of the continent’s most advanced service centers and an in-house testing lab in Glashütte.
Its boutiques in Hamburg, Paris, and New York act more like galleries than stores, featuring the biggest names in horology. And now, Urwerk is available at its Neuen Wall 11 boutique.
The Wempe x Urwerk partnership launches with six watches, ranging from the dinosaur-themed UR-101 T-Rex to the Dave Free co-signed UR-100V UltraViolet. For Wempe, it’s a bold declaration of support for a niche watchmaker.
It’s a move that signals a shift in the ecosystem. Independent watchmakers aren’t just being tolerated, they’re being championed. And that was certainly the case at a Wempe x Urwerk Hamburg launch event.
An eclectic crowd, bonded by a shared appreciation for craft, assembled to gawp at some of the most futuristic wrist marvels ever made. All rubbing shoulders was a fashion creative flexing a Tank, a German moped enthusiast who collects scooters and watches, and an 18-year-old influencer buying their first Cartier.
That’s what made the event so compelling: Seeing how the genius of Urwerk’s future-thinking watchmaking was attracting collectors from different spaces in horology.
Wempe has always been a gatekeeper, an institution that controls the flow of top-tier watches in Germany. Now, it’s also a gate-opener, offering access to the kind of high-concept indie horology that usually lives behind closed doors or in obscure Discord threads.
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