The MILGRAPH: Peak Micromilspec?

As you may or may not know, we at Micromilspec are best known for building custom timepieces for servicemen and women. The kind of demanding customers who don’t just need a good-looking watch, they need a survivable, functional instrument. And over the 40 or so military projects we’ve completed in recent years, we’ve learned a thing or two about what makes our clientele tick, so to speak. That’s why we’re bringing last year’s talk of the town back in a crisp white edition — a timepiece that looks like it could have been pulled straight from the set of Inception

The MILGRAPH is, in short, an encapsulation of what we do here at Micromilspec. It was originally based on a piece contracted by Special Operations Forces (the full details of which are obviously hush-hush), the watch combines the two most daily useful complications in a watch, the chronograph and the GMT. On the one hand you have the ability to time precise intervals, whether that’s syncing up operations or timing a lap. On the other, you can keep an eye on the time back home for when your next long-distance call is scheduled.

Of course, this is Micromilspec, so it’s not ‘just’ a GMT chronograph. As we’re sure the eagle-eyed can see, the chronograph is actually on the left-hand side of the watch. This is, as we’ve found, the most comfortable and practical place to put it. It means less wear and tear both on your wrist and on your clothes and makes it less likely to catch on anything. When you’re mid-mission, that change can make all the difference.

A proper GMT requires a proper GMT bezel, but where most in the watch world cater to the jet-set, we wanted to ensure ours was as practical a tool as the rest of our watches. So, we invented the QuadGrip bezel, which has four deep indents around it. These provide substantially more grip than the usual beads, notches or coin-edging that you normally have, able to be used even when wearing thick gloves. It’s also, of course, incredibly satisfying to use – even if we do say so ourselves.

The … mm case is made from microblasted Grade 5 titanium. Titanium’s a bit of a trend in the watch world at the moment and we’re definitely not the only people using it. But for us, the combination of light weight and the long-lasting tactical appearance mean there’s no substitute. And honestly, we’ve been using titanium before it was cool. Here it gives the watch a 100m water resistance, which is less than a professional dive watch (that shouldn’t have a GMT or chronograph anyway) but more than enough for braving even the harshest of elements.

Finally, to amp up readability we’ve actually labelled each of the subdials with what they’re showing. When you only have a split-second to check your watch, you need to eliminate the guesswork. Stylistically, it also amps up that tactical look in a way that we know our customers will appreciate. That readability’s enhanced even more with an orange-tipped GMT hand, an eye-catching pop against the otherwise stealthy look we’ve gone for.

The MILGRAPH white edition isn’t just a new release for us. We’ve been producing custom military watches since 2019, long enough now to know what we’re doing and we’ve encapsulated that experience into a watch that we feel encapsulates Micromilspec. It’s practical, it’s distinctive, it’s high-spec. It combines an unmistakable modern, Scandinavian approach to design with Swiss watchmaking at its finest. It’s built by tech but firmly analogue and with only 75 pieces this year, it’s strictly limited.

In short, it's the MILGRAPH. What more can we say?