It started five years ago selling watches named after fruit, in popsicle colors. Today serious collectors wear them. The 02SERIES Gen2 is proof that color and rigor don't have to fight.
A chronograph with a green-and-pink dial imitating a slice of watermelon doesn't sound like the launchpad for a respected brand. It sounds like a carnival gag. And yet that watch —the Watermel0n— is the one that put Studio Underd0g on the map when the Crown Prince of Ajman showed it on Instagram and orders poured in. As the brand and the watch press tell it, that was the spark.
The interesting part isn't the viral moment. It's what came after.
A brand that starts with a visual joke usually stays a joke. Studio Underd0g did the opposite: it took the license that color gave it to get noticed and used it to build watches that hold up under expert scrutiny. The 02SERIES —its field watch— is where that pivot becomes clearest. And its second generation, launched this very week, is the strongest evidence that the joke was never a joke.
From a Brighton side hustle to the wrists that matter
Richard Benc launched Studio Underd0g in March 2021, in the UK, on an idea that sounded naive: watchmaking takes itself too seriously, and it needs color. The "0" in the name —instead of the "o"— nods to the rule of forcing a number into every password. Everything about the brand carries that tone: playful on the outside, deliberate underneath.
The 01SERIES, that colorful chronograph running a hand-wound Seagull ST-19, was the phenomenon. Watermel0n, Strawberries & Cream, editions that sold out in minutes and resurfaced on the secondary market at multiples of retail. By 2023, Studio Underd0g was no longer an Instagram curiosity: it was one of the most talked-about stories in British microbrand watchmaking —a country that had gone decades without producing brands the community discussed seriously.
That kind of recognition is hard to fake, and the forums prove it. On Reddit, in collector groups, on the YouTube channels that make a living tearing watches apart, Studio Underd0g stopped being "the fruit brand" and became "the brand that does it right and has fun doing it." Man of Many put it in a line that's become almost a cliché: it's the watch serious Rolex owners buy for fun.
Why the 02SERIES is the most distinctive thing they make
A field watch is, by definition, an exercise in restraint. It descends from the military watches of World War II —specifically the famous Dirty Dozen that twelve brands built for the British Ministry of Defence in 1945— and its grammar is austere: big Arabic numerals, maximum legibility, zero ornament. It's the genre with the least room for color and play.
Which is exactly why choosing it was a bold move. Studio Underd0g could have kept making fruit chronographs indefinitely. Instead it took the most sober archetype in watchmaking and found a place for its identity without betraying the function.
The answer is the dial. Rather than printing color onto metal, the 02SERIES suspends a 1mm sapphire layer above the metallic base and tints it. Beneath it, an etched sunburst pattern throws back reflections that shift as light passes through the colored sapphire. The result is a dial with genuine depth —not a printing trick— and in the Gen2 it comes in four tones: Pink Lem0nade, Steffany Blue and the two newcomers, Red L0lly (cherry red) and Nightshade (a deep purple). The technique didn't come from nowhere: Studio Underd0g first explored it on its Manhattan collaboration with the British house Fears.
It's the kind of detail that separates a brand that thinks from one that decorates: a field watch —the most functional genre there is— carrying one of the more technically interesting dials in its price range.
What changed in the Gen2, and why it matters
The original 2023 02SERIES was, in Monochrome Watches' phrase, the brand's "difficult second album": proof that Studio Underd0g could move beyond the chronograph. It worked, but it had headroom. The second generation, unveiled on July 7, 2026, is an engineering revision more than a stylistic one.
The 316L steel case keeps its 37.5mm diameter and 46mm lug-to-lug —compact figures, comfortable on small and medium wrists— but slimmed down from 12 to 11.5mm. Without the domed sapphire crystal, the case is just 9.4mm. That thinness didn't come from cutting corners but from redesigning the dial and hands so the crystal sits closer to the display, with tighter assembly tolerances made possible by the brand's own workshop, nicknamed The D0ghouse. The screw-down caseback keeps its engraved jellyfish —a nod to the 100m water resistance— now on a matte background.
The real story, though, is inside. The Gen2 debuts the Sellita SW200-2 M Power+, replacing the earlier SW210-1. It's still hand-wound —consistent with the field-watch heritage— and still beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour, but it lifts the power reserve from 42 to 63 hours. Hacking seconds are retained for setting the time precisely. That extended reserve fixes the most legitimate criticism you could level at a manual watch: it now survives a weekend in the drawer without stopping.
Rounding out the update are new leather straps by The Strap Tailor, 18mm tapering to 16, with quick-release spring bars and a steel pin buckle. The Arabic hour markers are luminous, for the nighttime legibility a field watch demands.
What it isn't, and why that's a virtue
The 02SERIES isn't a diver in disguise or a covert homage to any classic. It copies no one's dial. With 100m of water resistance and a hand-wound movement, it doesn't pretend to be the most capable tool in your drawer either. What it offers is rarer: an identity of its own, executed seriously, packaged without solemnity.
Next to a Hamilton Khaki Field —the obvious and excellent benchmark here— the Studio Underd0g costs considerably more and uses the same kind of third-party Swiss movement. The difference isn't in the spec sheet. It's that one is an industrial classic and the other is the vision of a person with a name, built in small runs, with a dial no large brand would dare make this way. You're paying for that, not for the specifications.
Latin America and Spain Perspective
Studio Underd0g sells direct from underd0g.com, with worldwide shipping included. The 02SERIES Gen2 is priced at USD 1,200, GBP 875, EUR 900 or CHF 900 —figures confirmed by the brand and by Monochrome Watches. For buyers in Spain, the euro price is the most direct; for Latin America, the dollar is the reference.
The usual caveat on direct purchases from outside the region: the web price does not include import duties, which the carrier collects on delivery. (The figures below are approximate —verify with your customs broker before buying, since tariffs vary by exact classification.) In Mexico, budget 16% VAT plus a tariff that typically runs 15–20%, which can push the real cost above USD 1,500 equivalent. In Colombia and Argentina, tariff regimes and currency access complicate the math further; the most predictable route remains a direct purchase with an international card, accepting that taxes arrive separately. In Spain, importing from the UK after Brexit means VAT and possible duties on receipt, so it's worth confirming whether the brand already invoices with EU taxes included.
There is no authorized dealer network: purchase and service run directly through the brand. That's the flip side of the independent model —a better price at the source, but you handle the logistics and customs yourself.
Some brands start serious and loosen up over the years. Studio Underd0g went the other way: it began with a slice of watermelon on the wrist and ended up earning the respect of the least forgiving people in the room. The 02SERIES Gen2 is that respect turned into an object —a field watch that takes everything seriously except itself. Maybe that's the lesson: in watchmaking, as in most things, the hard part isn't being solemn. It's being light without being trivial.
