Worn & Wound
Farer Introduces the Integra, their First Integrated Bracelet Sports Watch
It’s perhaps a little surprising that it’s taken this long for Farer to enter the integrated bracelet sports watch scene. Not because the brand seems like a particularly likely prism through which to interpret the genre, but because the integrated bracelet sports watch has simply become a category unto itself over these last few years, and a brand that commits to variety of any kind needs to have one in their catalog, just as they need to have a diver, a dress watch, and so forth. The fact that so many small brands have carved out space in their collections for what was once a fairly niche and, if we’re being honest, not even very desirable style of watch says a lot about the state of the watch industry, more in fact than the purview of this article, which is to introduce the new Farer Integra lineup. The Integra is what Farer calls their “urban sports watch,” a characterization that has always confused me when used by other brands, and is even a bit stranger when you realize one of these watches has a malachite dial, and another in mother of pearl. Farer is a brand whose aesthetic is borrowed from nautical themes, car culture, vintage watch design, and other sources, so their take on “urban” was always going to be filtered through a very particular sensibility. In any case, it makes me wonder why any brand feels they need to fill these invented micro-niches. Can’t we just call it an integrated bracelet sports watch? Or a sports watch? We all kind of know w...
