Five Watches, Five Places
India has a landscape few countries can match. Oceans, mountains, forests and valleys all sit within one country, a mix that most continents have but very few single nations do. Some of these places stand out for their beauty and their geographical importance. They also support a huge number of species, which makes them places of survival and, at the same time, very sensitive ones.
Not all these places are widely known. A few of them sit behind the names of five watches, and they are worth knowing about.
Islands, Valleys and Forests
Lakshadweep is a group of islands in the Arabian Sea, known for its calm waters and for diving. The Laccadive takes its name from these waters, and its deep-blue dial is a nod to the vastness of the sea.
Zanskar is a valley in the high passes of the Himalayas. It is a land of snow-covered cliffs and frozen rivers, among the youngest and highest mountains in the world.
Further south, the Western Ghats hold some of the most intense forests in the country, and Agumbe sits at the heart of them. It is a small village in Karnataka and one of the wettest places in India, with some of the heaviest rainfall on the subcontinent. The forest here is thick and layered. Trees grow close together, the ground stays damp, and the air smells of wet earth and moss. This kind of tropical rainforest is rare, and what exists in Agumbe is only a small fraction of what is left in the world.
The Other Side of the Map
Then there is something more sombre: the modern cities, the ones we built against nature. Most people now live in cities. There are 37 megacities in the world, each with more than 10 million people, and six of them are in India. Cities cover only about 2% of the land on our planet, yet they generate around 70% of all carbon. They are a big part of India’s landscape today, and they come with consequences.
Five Watches, One Collection
Five watches are inspired by these places. All of them are part of Peninsula Professional, our collection inspired by India’s diverse landscapes.
They are the Peninsula Zanskar, the Peninsula Laccadive, the Peninsula Mannar, and the Peninsula Agumbe. The fifth is the odd one out. The Peninsula Carbon is inspired by the modern cities and the consequences that come with them.
The Landscape, Down to the Dial
In most of these watches, the dial colour is the one closest to the colour that represents the landscape. The Zanskar has a white dial with a grain texture. The white is a nod to the frozen rivers of the valley, and the texture shows the snow-covered cliffs. The Laccadive has a deep-blue sunburst dial that reflects the sea. The Agumbe has a deep-green dial that takes its colour from the dark, dense forests of the region. We wrote about this in What Makes Green Work on a Dial.
For some watches, the dial goes a step further and is made directly from a material of the place. The Mannar is not just black in colour. Its dial is black mother-of-pearl, found in the waters of the Gulf of Mannar, a stretch of sea once known as the Pearl Delta. Only 50 watches carry this dial, and no two are alike. You can read the full story in Inspired by India’s Pearl Delta.
The Carbon follows the same idea. Its dial is not just any black. It is made from carbon recovered from the atmosphere, using a material we developed called ReforgeCarbon™. The random pattern of carbon fibres means no two dials are the same, and only 100 watches carry it. The mock-AQI meter that replaces the minute track, with numbers from 50 to 500 and colours from soft green to deep amber, is a reminder of the carbon consequences each time you look at it. You can read more in the watch built from the cities we live in.
That is the beauty of these watches. The dial is part of the story.
One Collection, Many Stories
Every watch in Peninsula Professional shares the same pebble-shaped, lugless case, which sits comfortably on a range of wrist sizes. Even with the same case, the variety within the collection matches the variety of the landscapes behind it. Every watch gives you a story or a place you can connect with deeply, or simply a way to talk about Indian independent watchmaking and a kind of design you rarely find. It’s a watch you own, and it’s uniquely yours.
Peninsula Professional is only one part of what we make. There is also our pilot watch collection, the space collection, and our newest addition, the pocket watch.