Each time we come across a new object, have a new experience, and visit a new place, we naturally compare it to something else so that we can judge whether it is better or worse, so that we can evaluate where it stands within our global, and personal, human experience. But there are things, places, and experiences we cannot compare to previous ones because they are unique. They are indeed incomparable, refreshingly new, and inexplicably exciting. And while we can understand that, for a stranger looking in, striking, with all engines fired on, the keys of a keyboard to relate a singular experience with a one-of-a-kind timepiece will surely be strange, there is nothing strange about the watch we’re about to discover together. It is a pivot for the brand, a great departure from its norm, a gamble with its heritage, but there isn’t a thing about it which wouldn’t have made its founders proud and, I’m sure, excited.  

The brand is Fears, the model is the Redclliff 39.5 “ES”. The latter acronym stands for “Endurance Specification” and it says it all. This watch, this beast, this UFO, simply bears the brand name and its geographical location on the dial, indicating at once that we’re dealing with. And what makes the “ES” shine, as we’re about to see, is that, at last friends, we have a watch that is globally well made and not one for which the brand solely focused on developing the latest and greatest in terms of movement technology and engineering, completely forgetting about how the hell the watch will look like—hi to you Rolex Land Dweller, whose appearance is as repulsive to me as the wildest of cubist painting and its engine as pointless as it is to drive a Ferrari downtown Manhattan. No, no no. The Fears Redcliff “ES” is like…like…a rally car disguised as a small, elegant, urban SUV built to military specs. 

You’ll soon find out what on earth it is I’m rambling about already. 

Specifications 

As we saw, perhaps surprisingly, with the Arnos Pewter Blue or the most elegant and refined watch I’ve ever had the pleasure of putting in front of my camera and on my wrist (in the safety of my home of course) is that Fears can do solid very well. The hands and dial were rhodium-plated to add resistance to tarnishing and corrosion, one of these little details many mainstay brands couldn’t give a rat’s ass about. (As we know, they’re more concerned about developing the most accurate caliber in the world even though time is just a mere concept.) As we further saw with the Brunswick 40 “Odyssey Edition” and its PVD-coated and hand-polished brass hands and extremely generous applications of SuperLuminova X1, Fears can indeed lean into the utilitarian side of horology with as much agility as it does the dressier side of it, bringing together some of the most elegant robust timekeeping devices designed and manufactured by an independent brand.

The Redcliff 39.5 “ES” is another monster though. Fears has been discreetly leaving clues as to where it was headed, indeed beefing up its watches and flexing its engineering muscle to add unique know-hows and ways of manufacturing things that Fears only knows how to blend together to make remarkable and incomparable watches. Where the others waste their time making incredible movements, Fears focused on equipping the “ES” with technology we actually need to make our watches resistant to contemporary wear and tear. Let me give you three examples for appetizers: a 316L stainless case, frosted and hardened to 2,000 Hv on Vicker’s Hardening Scale, which is 60% more than the now Golden Standard for GADA-watches of 1,200 Hv. That’s one. DLC coated crown, bezel, and case-back for added resistance to scratches, corrosion, and tarnishing. That’s two. And a bespoke strap buckle that was also frosted and hardened with a DLC coating. That’s three. 

What has also become clear with Fears is that the brand never leaves any stone unturned. No micron unspoken for if you will. Inside a reasonably-sized case of 39.5 x 46.95 x 10.37mm (and a 20mm lug width,) beats a Top Grade LaJoux-Perret G100 caliber (4Hz/68 hours of power reserve), which I believe is factory-regulated in four positions to run at ± 7 seconds per day, also adorning a superb blue metallic branded custom rotor. The latter can be admired through a sapphire case-back, and we also find a slightly domed sapphire crystal on top, both equipped with ARdur® inner anti-reflective coating—a high-end compound which is scratch resistant itself, clear, anti-static, and water and oil-repellent. (I mean, what the fuck?) And, let’s not forget, 150 meters of water resistance (screw-down crown and case-back,) and SuperLuminova X2-Grade on the CNC-machined brass hands and in molded, three-dimensional markers for the hours. 

Phew, taking a small break to hydrate. 

Design

So, as we now know, the Fears Redcliff 39.5 “ES” is built tough, super tough, uber tough, as tough as professional tool watches come. The brand says about the “ES” that it is practically indestructible and I believe they aren’t overstating its durability. And I could have ended the review here because there was already so much to talk about when talking about specifications (Hi, Raymond.) But Fears, of course now, went a step further—and many long strides in front of the old Swiss guys—to make the Redcliff 39.5 “ES” something of a visual statement. It transformed the materials which make the watch durable into integral parts of its design, for example utilizing the dark nature of DLC coatings to make the bezel, crown, and case-back pop from the non-DLC coated mid-case so that they are separated technically and visually. The latter is therefore sandwiched between the black sections and isolated so, so that we can admire its relatively simple and elongated profile. 

The mid-case is indeed extremely thin, flat like a coin but finished like a high-tech piece of military equipment. Its lugs are beveled up and down and its sides slab-sided to perfection, meeting the edges of the bezel and case-back to the precise millimeter. The tactile experience of running your finger over the case is something I never felt compelled to write about before, as the mid-case is soft and even to the touch whilst the DLC-coated parts generate a little more traction. Clearly Fears has thought about all of the details and one I cannot show in pictures but only relate to you by way of words is how the crystal is separated from the bezel by either a gasket or something else which appears to absorb the eventual shocks. It’s impossible to see it with the naked eye as there are probably many other things that would be impossible for me to show you even with my most advanced camera setup. (The latter is nothing worth writing home about to be honest.) 

Lastly, and most importantly, the dial. I did write three paragraphs about the specs of the “ES”, but because they all merge into the design, I couldn’t cover them all with all due attention. The dial is of professional-German-tool-watch-level-of-legibility, one of the most legible dials I’ve ever come across, whilst also looking surprisingly urban and refined. The “Fears” hands have a superb matte texture and are perfectly proportioned to reach the hour and minute markers respectively, the latter standing proud atop the sunken part of the dial as they are made of moulded blocks of X2 SuperLuminova. They also pop so much because the background is textured to a melted-plastic like aspect and absorbs light, and time is easy to read because the markers are the 3, 6, and 9 are thicker and the one at the twelve doubled and shaped like a rabbit’s teeth (I love it.) Bonus points for the orange seconds hand, discreet date window and color-matched datewheel. 

I told you, Fears left no microns left unspoken for. Oh and that angled rehaut! Damn. 

The Heart of the Matter

In a recent article I wrote about Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, Fears’ fourth Managing Director, I related the immense pressure he would be right to feel ensuring that his family’s stellar legacy lives on into the 21st century, finding ways, often complex ones, to honor the brand’s storied heritage in design and engineering whilst leaving a new artistic mark within the brand’s modern collections. In other words, making watches that clearly come from Fears whilst also clearly not being pastiches of their vintage collections. It’s a hard job to have, one which I wouldn’t want to have, and one only Nicholas could have taken on. While Fears is a team composed of skilled and talented people in all areas of watchmaking, I do know that Nicholas has a unique talent for pointing the nose of Fears into the right direction so that it can be Fears today as it will be Fears 20 and 50 years from now. Which is why the brand came up with the Redcliff 39.5 “ES”.

This model is not a concept watch but an actual watch that is, according to yours truly, the actual best definition of a go-anywhere-do-anything timepiece, as it strikes the perfect balance between exceptional engineering and singularity in design. Exceptional materials and superior manufacturing of course do come with a certain price tag, $3,500 USD excluding taxes ($4,200 USD with,) which is honestly little to pay for what you get as everything Fears does is visually immaculate, copasetically made, and overall balanced and unique,. Yes, I do love what the brand does and I won’t stop expressing my fascination and appreciation for what Nicholas and team does everyday for us watch enthusiasts and for the community as a whole. I don’t know about you but I’d say that Fears is exactly where it would have been should it had not gone through a 39-year hiatus before being reopened by Nicholas. 

Conclusion

A conclusion is not necessary for this review. All has already been said. But: buy one here. 

Thanks for reading.