We haven’t spoken about a brand revival in a long while. Not because we didn't care or got tired of them, but simply because there wasn’t an interesting one to speak about. We all appreciate  good comeback stories which are grandiose on the big screen however not so much when it comes to horology, as the how and the why it happens generally doesn’t meet the romanticized idea we’ve formulated of these occurrences. For rarely do the new brand owners have a connection with the original ones, as they weren’t related and actually never met, for the rights to a brand name are bought from an investment group which purchased it in the first place to make a buck or two. In most cases, the new version of the brand doesn’t even have actual archives, old parts filling up cardboard boxes and unfinished drawings of remarkable collections. What typically happens is that the new owner creates fresh watches from vintage models and tries his or her best to make a product which emulates the charm of the original ones. 

Then there is Elka and a gentleman by the name of Hakim El Kadiri. 

I bet your retirement money you have never heard of the name Elka. The brand comes from a Dutch watchmaking family which got started in 1877 by creating a tactile watch for the blind, and was formerly established in 1913 to become “Watchmaker of the Queen” of the Netherlands, and counts, as some of its successes, the invention of an unbreakable plastic watch crystal in 1925. To make a long story short, Elka was run by the founding Kiek Family from 1877 to the late 1970s when it perished on account of the advent of battery-operated timepieces. The name Elka was preserved for two decades before being adopted by Mr. El Kadiri whose childhood nickname was—I kid you not—the contraction of his last name, Elka. As he rightfully points out, Mr. El Kadiri is not connected to the original brand but simply wanted to honor its past by reviving the name. Mr. El Kadiri is himself no stranger to the watchmaking industry as he previously worked in product management for a small enterprise called the Swatch Group.

That’s it for the history lesson. Now let’s talk about the unusual Arinis AF02-1202. 

Specifications 

From this historical cameo we learned of the original Elka’s past which was nothing short of being extraordinary and highly unusual. Since it is not everyday that we hear about a brand, and its founders, as having pioneered technologies or styles of watches which do not originate from Switzerland (even though Elka opened a branch in La-Chaux-de-Fonds in 1949—a last historical tidbit) and whose name does not rhyme with apex, cretin, or alalunga. (Please tell me you figured out which brands I am referring to.) No, instead, Elka seems to have always followed in its own footsteps which makes the study of Mr. El Kadiri's Elka even more so fascinating to me and so for two reasons. One, because I couldn’t find many examples of vintage Elka watches on the world wild web save for a gold pocket watch with a military scale, a rectangular World War II-era gentleman’s watch, and a few asymmetrical chronographs with unusual complications. Two, because Elka’s contemporary collections do not resemble anything else on the market. 

Understand: for a brand originally founded in 1913, the correlation between the lack of vintage samples on the internet and of today’s Elka bespoke design language is intriguing. 

And this seems to explain why and how Mr. El Kadiri has positioned his brand: to pay homage to the unique culture of the original Elka—of doing things differently—without re-issuing past collections while infusing his own with a singular personality. Which leads us then to the Arinis AF02-1202, a sort of UFO in 21st century horology for it is endowed with a style entirely of its own and for it is also a proper dive watch. The first point of interest being the moderately-sized stainless steel case measuring 41mm in diameter, 46.5mm lug-to-lug, 11.85mm thick and coming with a 20mm lug width. By way of a generously knurled and fully polished 5.9mm screw-down crown and superbly decorated screw-down case-back, the Arinis boasts a more-than-enough 200 meters of water resistance which makes it suitable for any human activity including space exploration. The case commands a good wrist presence whilst being comfortable to wear—it has the perfect dimensions for a modern dive watch for a perfectly sized 6.50”/16.5cm wrist. 

What I failed to mention about Mr. El Kadiri’s Elka is the Swiss nature of the brand headquartered in Neuchâtel, one of Switzerland’s cradles of traditional watchmaking. This will partially explain why the Arinis bears the “Swiss Made” wordmark below the six o’clock and is equipped with a La Joux-Perret G100 caliber (4Hz/68 hours of power reserve) which has become a bit of a star amongst micro and independent brands. Above the dial we find a chevé-style boxed sapphire crystal (a name which refers to a particular complex manufacturing process which permits to make larger-than-usual domed sapphire crystals) which has a wide and gently curved profile, equipped with inner anti-reflective coating. Around it a black ceramic bezel inlay where the markings were incised and filled with vintage-infused SuperLuminova which we also find generously applied on the hands and printed hours markers. The icing on the case is the precise unidirectional 120-click bezel which doesn’t play back and which perfectly aligns with the dial. 

Design

This is the ripe moment to let you know how many of Uncle Sam’s dollars you will be required to remove from your watch-purchasing budget to acquire the Elka Arinis: 2,262.50 of them. I know what you’re thinking: this isn't cheap change to spend on a diver from a brand you’ve never heard of. And that is the mental hurdle we all face when discovering a new watch from a “new” brand when we’re finding the model quite attractive and thus far mechanically very sound as we hope any proper dive watch ought to be. The watch market is such today that there are many options for good underwater exploration timekeeping devices with similar specs for less money and I’ve reviewed my fair share of them on Mainspring and elsewhere. However, I invite you to consider the following hypothesis: as it has been discussed many times in this magazine, on some occasions, we got to pay a little more to get a bespoke design, even more so when the aesthetics of the watch are paired with a solid technical foundation. That is what we’re about to discuss. 

In some cases, as we’ve seen with the Delhi Watch Company Terra Titanium, stepping outside the norm comes with a tiny price tag because we have to take into consideration which country the brand heralds from. The more we move the compass needle west on the map to rich and developed countries the more expensive watches become since costs of living and of manufacturing where they are increase exponentially. With that in mind, let’s study the bespoke design of the Elka Arinis and the elements of it that could support the aforementioned hypothesis, starting with the case. It immediately stood out to me for its unique profile (which can be found on most of Elka’s collections) organized around wide angled lugs which curve in as they leave the case and angle out from the wrist by way of a polished bevel which crawls to the bottom flanks of the mid-case. The latter is extra narrow at its center and flares out where it meets the lugs. Above the mid-case Elka placed a polished chamfer which meets with the base of the bezel assembly. 

More specifically, the polished section angles in whilst the bezel angles out, creating a visual separation between the two as well as enabling an easy grip of the polished coin-edge knurling to actuate the bezel. The latter is quite superb in my own opinion as it displays 1950s Blancpain Fifty Fathoms (which I never reviewed obviously) and Eska Amphibian 250-BS vibes on account of the polished ceramic insert on which 10-minute increments are displayed by an alternation of Arabic numerals and batons where thin curved lines emphasize the first 15 minutes. Which leads us to discover the dial and its numerous visual gems. From its periphery we find a fully graduated minute track printed in glossy black accompanied by yellow triangles every five minutes on a radially brushed angled rehaut. Then thickly applied hour markers of various shapes (triangles, batons, and dots) crisply popping from a matte black dial, complemented by a perfectly integrated date aperture at the three displaying white numerals on a color-matched date disc. 

And then there are two icings on the horological cake for me: the vintage-looking brand logo printed above the pinion and a set of art deco hour and minute hands, made of a brushed nickel-colored finish which makes them easy and pleasurable to see. The hour one is shaped akin to a leaf hand with a longer syringe tip, the minute hand fashioned like a soft rounded arrow, and the seconds hand for its part tapers down towards the periphery of the dial and is composed of an arrow-shaped element whose tip was bent to counter the parallax effect of the chevé-style boxed sapphire crystal. Clearly, as I’m sure you might agree, a lot of thinking went into designing the dial and case of the Elka Arinis which should be taken into account when thinking about its price. 

The Heart of the Matter

The question of how much we should spend for a bespoke design is one which has kept me up at night for a long time and which bears re-analyzing on a regular basis through lengthy reviews such as this one. After hundreds of reviews we now know that singularity in design can be had either for the equivalent of a burger + fries + soda in New York City or a lavish five-course meal for a family of five in Dubai. There has to be a science to the question of the cost of design beyond that of where in the world the people running a brand are based. While we won’t shed some clear light on this question today we might be able to do so on the earlier hypothesis which indicates that on some occasions, we have to pay more than we think we should to acquire a singular-looking, and well-built timekeeping device such as the Elka Arinis AF02-1202. When taking into consideration what it is made of, the quality of its manufacturing and finishing (which I hope transpires through the photos,) and how positively new its design is, we may agree that $2,262.50 is a fair price to ask. 

Moreover, I would invite you to put the Arinis side-by-side with popular Swiss divers from mainstream brands which retail for around the same number of dollars and study their differences in specifications and, of course, design. I’m evidently thinking of the new Longines Hydroconquest which made the first page of all online magazines and commandeered YouTubers’ channels, whose tech surpasses that of the Elka’s but whose design is much less…”inspired” we shall say. 

Conclusion 

Even though the Elka Arinis AF02-1202 looks quite splendid in black with aged lume, as we saw today, the brand actually released multiple versions of it: I counted 25 of them, various dial colors—black, sunburst red or blue—with aged lume of white one, as well as date and no-date options, offered on a variety of fastening systems such a rubber straps, mesh bracelets, and NATO-style nylon straps. There are therefore many ways by which to enjoy this unique Swiss diver and to stretch the asking $2,262.50 as far as possible. Lastly, I encourage you to browse through the brand’s catalog which is expansive in styles and which will give you a better understanding of what Elka is and what it brings to the market. 

Thanks for reading.