In the past two/three years, the talk of the horological town has been our necessity to be given tool-less micro-adjustment clasps. If a brand doesn’t offer it now, it must be downgraded to one that lives in the past or doesn’t care, especially when speaking about microbrands. (For some reason, larger houses of horology are more easily forgiven for this omission.) As a “proper” microbrand does outfit clasps with this type of adjustments so that we can lengthen or shorten bracelets in accordance to the climate we are experiencing at any given moment—as our wrists swell when its hotter and more humid and deflate when its colder and drier. It’s true: finding the perfect fit in the winter is easier as our wrists’ circumference isn’t really altered by whatever we do. However, the game is of a whole different nature when it’s getting hot and humid and we are required to transition from saunas to igloos several times within the same day, or when temperatures sway from chilly mornings to suffocating afternoons. 

But, thus far we’ve mostly been obsessed with micro-adjustments mechanisms for clasps of metal bracelets because they constitute the type of fastening systems that can become downright uncomfortable if not properly sized when the thermometer hits new records and humidity is abundant. (Which I have experienced countless times.) However, something had to be done also regarding other types of straps (leather, rubber, and even nylon) as they rarely come with the right amount of holes or holes punched at the right intervals to match our unique wrist size and watches’ lug-to-lug distances. This critical observation gave birth to Fitwell Buckle so that two birds could be hit with one small ingenious stone: first, to find the perfect fit for our strap regardless of the season; two, to be able to adjust the fit when experiencing variations in temperatures so that a watch is neither too tight nor too loose. And this adjustment operation ought to be done easily. Thus, Fitwell created the M1 Micro-Adjusable Buckle. 

About Fitwell Buckles

Before we speak about the M1 buckle itself, we should discuss the brand, what prompted who to create it, and what it does. It all started in 2022 with one of the co-founder’s (Oliver Rowen) personal experience of having an ill-fitted strap on one of his favorite watches during a holiday, where walking out of an air-conditioned room to a sweat-generating outdoors meant the watch never fitted properly. Inside, the watch felt a little too loosey-goosey because A/C sucks the humidity out of an indoor space while cooling it down, and outside the timepiece was a bit too tight once the wrist became exposed to hotter temperatures and more humidity. In order to alleviate the problem of the imperfect fit, Oliver punched an extra hole in the strap which fixed the problem however not in an elegant way. Oliver thought something better, more aesthetic, and well-engineered ought to be created to give enthusiasts and collectors who are into leather, rubber, and nylon fastening systems the possibility to find the perfect fit for their strap. 

As you can imagine, a lot more comes into play when creating a universal micro-adjustment mechanism for a buckle besides having the idea for it. After his unfortunate holiday experience, Oliver partnered with Tom Simson to come up with a solution through their new company, Fitwell Buckle. Most of the design and engineering heavy loads rested upon Oliver’s shoulders to develop their first buckle, for he had worked as a computer designer for large brands for many years before becoming a watch enthusiast and collector and coming upon the perfect-fit issue for straps. Oliver’s career actually began behind the steering wheels of race cars for a while before joining a skateboard company, which is when he began to learn computer design. For Fitwell and the M1 Micro-Adjustable Buckle, Oliver and Tom wanted to create an elegant solution indeed, in the sense that their buckle would deceptively look like any run-of-the-mill buckle from a design perspective so that it can seamlessly be paired with any strap of any material and finish. 

Thus they came up with the idea for Fitwell Buckle in 2022 and started deliveries of the M1 in 2024, so about two years passed between the idea and the product, during which the duo plowed through hundreds of designs, dozens of prototypes, and one final product to offer their perfect solution for the imperfect fit. Given the variety of strap materials and hardware finish on the market today, Fitwell Buckles offers the M1 in seven finishes so that you can not only find the perfect mechanical fit for your favorite strap, but also create the ideal visual combo for it. 

Specifications & Design 

The first point of interest to mention about the Fitwell M1 Micro-Adjustable Buckle is the variety of finishing options the brand offers. Seven finishes indeed—brushed and polished stainless steel as presented in this review, titanium, black, yellow gold, rose gold, bead-blasted titanium, and bead-blasted stainless steel—to which you can add three options for widths—16mm, 18mm, and 20mm, which can be used for straps of 18, 20, and 22mm. However, which one you pick also depends on the taper of the strap. For example, you can have a 20mm strap which tapers to 18mm or 16mm or abouts, for which you would choose the 18mm and 16mm buckles respectively. (It is very important that you measure the width of the strap at the buckle.) For the purposes of this review, I paired the 18mm buckle to an 18mm CNS Khaki Cotton Strap fitted on the Benrus DTU-2A/P to showcase that it is indeed possible to use the M1 on this style of straps, and the 20mm buckle to a 22mm Artem Hydroflex on the Tornek-Rayville Type 7B. Though you won’t see the watches. 

So the genius of the M1 buckle is that it can be used to either tighten or loosen a strap depending on what you need. For, as mentioned in the introduction, you may simply require to find the right spot in-between two holes of your strap or slightly adjust the length of it throughout the day as your wrist swells or deflates. The M1 was thus engineered and designed to offer 3mm of micro-adjustment for that purpose, which can be activated either wearing the watch on the wrist or not, by pushing the strap towards the buckle to lengthen it or tugging on it to shorten its length. To make it easier for you to know where you are with the adjustment, Fitwell added a triangle where the tang meets the buckle, so that when you see it you know you are on the looser position and when you don’t, that you are on the tighter position. Moreover, by design, Fitwell also added an extra detente between the two positions of micro-adjustments which can be used as a third position albeit one that won’t necessarily stay locked in place as the other two. 

The engineering of the Fitwell M1 Micro-Adjustable Buckle really shines through when pairing it with different straps and watches to get a full sense of the ultra practicality of this deceptively simple engineering solution. The M1 in brushed and polished steel you can see on these photos is visually versatile, as the predominance of brushed surface treatments makes it more natural to pair with dual-finished cases and even fully brushed ones, whilst the polished edges of it adds a little extra umph of dapperness when it is appropriate and necessary. What I personally like about this solution is the fact Fitwell constructed the M1 buckle with a slim body making it easier to pair with any type of straps, and sometimes it replaces bulkier buckles as the one found on the Artem Hydroflex for example which I could have done without from the get-go. Lastly, Fitwell gives you two spring-bars, one installed on the buckle and a spare one, and it is even possible to use those that came with the OEM buckle to indeed find the perfect fit. 

Conclusion 

The world of horology is in a bit of a better place since Fitwell Buckle entered the scene and offered a practical solution to a problem all of us have experienced with leather, rubber, and nylon straps, of the two-piece or the one-piece kinds. The M1 Micro-Adjustable Buckle is not only an elegant solution to find the perfect adjustment for your favorite straps, but it is also solidly built, and the latching-on experiences when extending or contracting the adjustments is precise. In other words, the engineering and manufacturing is sound and of high quality. Thus remains the question of price: $40 USD for the dual finished stainless steel buckle as presented here, as well as for the black, yellow gold, rose gold, and bead-blasted steel versions, and $50 USD for the two titanium ones. This is a bit of a steal if I may so myself and you ought to get you a few of them. 

Thanks for reading.