MILAN — “I was impressed by the way that Giovanni Moro’s designs captured the ruggedness of the dive watches from the [Jamed Bond antagonist] Dr. No-era, yet felt super modern.”
That’s what menswear designer Todd Snyder thinks of Unimatic, the cult premium watch brand established in 2015 by Giovanni Moro and Simone Nunziato.
One should trust WWD’s 2024 Menswear Designer of the Year, who sells Unimatic watches at his flagships in the U.S. Snyder has curated his network of stores into emporiums offering his namesake collections, luxe outdoorsy gear of the Woolrich Black Label line he designs, and a roster of other brands’ items to provide a lifestyle assortment.
You May Also Like
Related Articles
“I first learned about Unimatic through a totally obsessive, watch-collecting friend a few years ago — not wildly unlike myself.…I’m super proud to sell Unimatic’s styles at Todd Snyder, and even more proud to be collaborating with this rising star on an exclusive style for early next year,” Snyder said.
Almost 10 years after cofounding it, Moro is still as passionate about his venture and the thorough design process, which goes into creating new watches as well as developing collaborations, as he did from Day One.
Unimatic has grown from the passion Moro shared with Nunziato during their college years into a full-fledged business that generated 4.3 million euros in 2023 sales and counts about 45 stockists and 90 doors.
Hinged on what Moro describes as the “design synthesis of three decades of dive and sport watchmaking,” Unimatic’s watches are defined by a clean and distinctive aesthetic, almost minimal in their lack of decorative slants.
Crafted from stainless steel, their key features include a sapphire crystal, water resistance up to 984 feet, and Super-LumiNova technology for enhanced readability.
“As we were studying industrial design, we grew increasingly passionate about watchmaking. We had small collections of watches and as part of our friendship we developed a shared critical thinking about them,” Moro said, speaking from Unimatic’s atelier and showroom in central Milan.
In 2015, the pair decided to give the dream of their youth a business try.
They developed 300 Made in Italy pieces of the seminal model, dubbed Modello Uno or U1, fully designed in-house except for the movement, sending out introductory e[mails to retailers, but essentially hoping they could get family and friends to buy them.
“The goal was to materialize years and years of conversations among the two of us, and our ambition was just to reach breakeven with this first small batch of product,” Moro explained.
The legendary Parisian concept store Colette was the sole retailer that responded to Unimatic’s call and struck a deal to carry a few pieces, which sold out sooner than expected.
This led to a retail ripple effect with such stores as Japan’s Biotop, Copenhagen’s Goods, Mr Porter and LuisaViaRoma, among others, knocking at Unimatic’s door.
Unprepared for such a response, the Unimatic cofounders were left with no more stock to sell.
“We were kind of naif and unprepared. We never thought we would run out of stock, and this generated demoralization but concurrently it built anticipation on the product,” Moro offered.
Talk about a scarcity strategy, which in Unimatic’s case was serendipitous.
The hiccup was turned into an opportunity to develop a co-branded, all-black watch with Colette of just 50 pieces based on the U1 model.
That seminal tie-up was followed by many others with a wide range of fashion, retail, lifestyle and entertainment companies from Mihara Yasuhiro, Nigel Cabourn, Kiton, Undefeated and Norwegian Rain to Hodinkee, LuisaViaRoma, Nous Paris, Mr Porter and MoMA, among many others.
The most unexpected linkups have included partnerships with the Spongebob Squarepants franchise in what Moro bills as a “desecration of our ‘Teutonic’ [watch] design,” with NASA in 2019 and with Galina Andreevna Balashova, the Russian architect and designer of the Soviet Space Program in 2021.
“The first Colette cobranding has become the blueprint for Unimatic to open up our brand’s reach to different and broader audiences every time,” Moro explained.
Moro treasures multiple anecdotes and stories about each of the cobranding projects he has masterminded for Unimatic, including getting an email on the brand’s customer service address from Undefeated’s co-owner Eric Peng Cheng, who had just bought a watch, which would lead to the 2020 collaboration.
“Each new one has cross-pollinated with others that followed,” Moro said.
Unimatic currently boasts five key families of watch designs, called Modello Uno or U1, Due or U2, and so on. The latest style — Modello Cinque, or U5 — was introduced in 2023, tapping into a more compact design with its 36mm case and a Swiss-made, manual-winding movement.
They also serve as the canvas for collaborations, reinterpreted each time with customized details.
Since 2021 the company has introduced a carryover collection of Classics with the models UC1, UC2, UC3 and UC4 coming in a numbered but unlimited run. Representing the more affordable segment of the brand’s offering, they come with a matte black dial, graphic aluminum bezel inserts, and are fitted on a black nylon strap. The Classic UC5 has yet to be launched.
A business tipping point was provided by yet another cobranding, with watch site Hodinkee in 2021. The limited run of 1,500 pieces based on the U1 model had a Swiss-made movement and was 40 percent pricier than Unimatic’s regular designs, and sold out fast.
“This created buzz and Unimatic became increasingly part of the conversation,” Moro said. “We started facing a new, happy problem: an abundance of requests for collaborations that weren’t always meaningful.”
In 2023 Unimatic released 23 cobranded drops, including with MoMA. “Some opportunities are not to be missed if you think you can do a good job,” he said.
“The eclectic mix of clients and collaborations proves that the product is spot-on…it’s the single thing we pour continued energy and resources into,” Moro explained.
Unimatic’s revenues are currently split between its own e-commerce and wholesale operations, the latter generated via specialty watch boutiques and lifestyle and fashion concept stores.
Last May the company onboarded a commercial director, Giulio Picone, to spearhead further growth in the latter retail segment, with key areas of focus including South Korea, Japan, the U.S., as well as Europe, where the brand has struck deals with local distributors.
Moro said his ambition is to concurrently strengthen Unimatic’s retail footprint while elevating the brand’s positioning.
“We would like to be the most authoritative watchmakers in fashion and the most fashionable in the watchmaking space,” he said.
Unimatic has been showing its collections at menswear fair Pitti Uomo since 2017 and attended Chicago Collective last August, with plans to return to both in 2025.