We have had a lot of minimalistic watches at New Labels Only. If you recall, we had the Zebrawood Rosegold from Original Grain, the 460 No Monday Watch and more recently the Leaking Dawn from Maven Watches. This time we introduce you ROUE Watch, HDS One. With its premium quality, refined style and affordable price tag, the HDS One is a modern timepiece with a 70’s design.

Roue Watch

As it is tradition, we would usually introduce the brand’s background in detail and talk about how it started, but we are going to do things a bit differently.

As part of our latest segment ‘A moment with‘, we have interviewed the founder of Roue Watch, Alex Iervolino, where we found out the motivation behind the brand and also about Alex’s entrepreneurship journey. Do look out for the interview, coming very soon!

But here’s just a brief background about Roue Watches and it’s creator.

Alex Iervolino is an aesthetics lover and great enthusiast of industrial designers such as Dieter Rams, Hartmut Esslinger and Richard Sapper. Despite working in finance for over 20 years, Alex is a classic car aficionado and collecting beautiful designs as German Braun radios and mid-century Scandinavian furniture. He took that passion a bit further a designing his our furniture and later founded Roue Watch.

With the influence of his idols, his admiration for iconic vintage watches such as the Heuer Montreal, Carrera, Regatta and 1960’s Omega Seamaster  along with his love for 1960s and ’70s motorsport designs, Alex combined them to create Roue Watch (Roue French word for ‘wheel’),  a brand with the belief that premium quality and refined style shouldn’t be exclusive to the rich.

There are currently 4 models in Roue Watch collection:the CHR, the SSD, the HDS and the Cal, all coming in different case colours and different straps.

HDS One Specifications

Here are the specifications of the HDS One, one of the best minimalistic watches on the market.

• An easy interchangeable bands system
• 2 bands included: sports silicone + nylon front/leather back
• Ultra scratch resistant sapphire crystal glass
• High precision Japanese Miyota quartz movement
• Case made of top quality 316L blasted stainless steel with brushed finishing
• 5 ATM (50 meters) water resistant
• Case diameter: 41.5 mm
• Overall thickness: 9.8 mm
• Lug width: 22 mm

Unboxing of HDS One

https://youtu.be/0OJI7guGDaY

One Of The Best Minimalistic Watches

So let’s find out why the Roue HDS One is one of the best minimalistic watches in the market.

Firstly, we have to give a big shout out to Roue Watch for the packaging. It is very different to your norm and also very simplistic. We definitely love how the face dial pokes out from a hole and is the first thing you see. If you have not watched the unboxing video, we definitely encourage you to do so, as you will definitely be amazed.

The first thing which will capture you attention is the dial. The dial is split in two rings. The outer ring, for minutes, is in black and the inner ring, for hours, is in a graphite colour. The prints of the hour and minutes indices are in white and legible.To finish off the dial, a yellow gasket surrounds the dial just to add of vibrancy to the watch and Roue logo centered in the middle just to give that 1970’s retro allure. But what makes the dial mesmerizing in the different colours contrasting and complementing each other to create a very attractive watch.

Just to make sure that your eyes are transfixed on the dial, the hands have been well crafted and selected for the HDS One. The hour and minute hands, both in white and with a black tip at the beginning, has a slight curve at the bottom and then thins out at the top. The second-hand is long, sharp with a yellow accent. With the graphite coloured inner ring dial and the black tips at the beginning hands, it seems that hands are not connected to the dial and feel as if they are floating. To finish off the hour and minute hands have been lumed for greater visibility in the dark.

Now let’s focus on the casing. The silver casing is made from 316L blasted stainless steel with brushed finishing and really goes well with the dial. The design of the casing resembles a barrel which was likely to have been influenced by the 1970’s watch but with a modern twist. At your usual position you have your crown. We have to say that they crown is quite small when compared to the case size. The crown has been indented but unfortunately not signed, which is a shame. At the back, the case has a checkered flag design with Roue watch logo in the middle to reminisce Alex’s love for motor sports.

So the watch came with two straps. One is a sports silicone and the other is a nylon front/leather back. With the quick release pins, it was really easy to change the straps without any problem. But we have to say the that sport silicone strap goes better with the HDS One. The main reason is the design og the sport silicone strap. It has little holes engraved in and it just feel more comfortable around the wrist.

Now the most important part of the watch, the movement. So inside you have a high precision Japanese Miyota 2315 quartz movement. After wearing the watch for a couple of days, the movement did not lag and was flawless to say the least.

How did it feel on the wrist?

We have to say this has to be one of the best watches we’ve had on the wrist. The strap, especially the sport silicone, was perfect and did not have to be broken into. The watch sat very well on the wrist and the its barrel style case wrapped itself around the wrist and was just perfect. The width of the case, 9.8mm was never going to get in the way of moving the wrist and the crown was not even close to the hand movement.

Where does the HDS One rank in our minimalistic watches collection?

There is no doubt that the HDS One is one of the best minimalistic watches we’ve had at New Labels Only, and we rank it quite highly. It is a well designed watch, stunning to say the least, with a 1970’s theme but with a modern twist. But what makes this even better is that the watch is priced at £114 / $160 / €130. It is definitely going to be hard for you to find any minimalistic watches priced at this point and simultaneously having the features and specs of the HDS One.

Do visit Roue Watches to read the reviews of the HDS One and also to see more of their watch collection.

So this was the review of Roue Watch HDS One, one of the best minimalistic watches in the market. We would love to know what you think about the HDS One. Is it a watch worth investing into or do you think you there are better minimalistic watches out there? Do let us know in the comment!

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