We, the global watch community, spend a whole lot of time talking about the latest ideas and craziest inventions of this brand and that brand. Oh look, wow, X tapestried the dial with 5mm-thick lines of five different blends of lume, this is so cool or Y created the first case made of 3D-printed dried snail spit, extraordinary! And even This unique dial is made of a triple-concave and double-convex piece of translucent sapphire, Z brand is killing it! What all of these fictional inventions have in common, as well as those which are real and actually “disrupt” the industry, is that the means become the interest of the watch, and not the watch itself. Akin to modern and contemporary art where it is the type of paint and how it is used to create a black square inside a black rectangle which is noteworthy, not the painting itself. Fictional or real, watches whose sole talking point is that one innovation do not make for good everyday watches and so they bore me to death and in great depths. (Ah.) 

What is more interesting to look at and talk about is when brands manage to integrate something different into a classic genre of horology, or combine a new material or shape with their own creation (design) which we can wear everyday. So something a bit off-the-beaten-path but not strange, like marrying a new sauce to a staple dish or coming up with new colors for a Ferrari. It is same same but different in a good way as the final product is a sensical timekeeping device which we feel compelled to strap to our wrist to do life. And so today I’m happy to take you on a walk to discover the second model from British brand McQuaide, the Cosmopolitan C1, a modern sporty everyday watch whose main technical feature is a Damascus Steel case and whose main visual feature is a Damascus Steel case. Though paired with a clean and legible dial with bold hands and markers, powered by a Swiss caliber, and endowed with loads of lume. Prices currently start at $691 USD and deliveries are expected for May of 2026. 

Specifications 

Writing this review required me to brush up on my metallurgy classes (right!) so that I could (hopefully) say something interesting about the C1’s case material: Damascus Steel. Whilst its common name refers to the ancient city of the Damascus in Syria which produced fine swords, the origin of the technique dates back to the 1st millennium BCE in Southern India and Sri Lanka by creating something called crucible steel which was, to keep things simple, an alloy made of several types of iron and steel mixed with sand, ashes, or glasses, which was dyed, hammered, or etched to create the distinct intricate wave-like patterns best known for appearing on the aforementioned swords. Today Damascus Steel refers to the technique of mixing different types of steel together, here 316L and 304L, welded, folded, and layered multiple times, which is then etched (coated) in ferric chloride acid which darkens and brightens each steel differently due to their varying content of nickel. Since the melting and folding of steels cannot be precise, each case of the C1 comes with its unique pattern. 

McQuaide will go as far as shipping the Cosmopolitan C1 along with what the brand calls a Damascus Signature, a card on which is printed the unique pattern of your Damascus Steel case, seen from the side. This is cool, unheard of, and already making for a good case (!) for this model. From a pure watch nerd specifications perspective, the case measures a modern 39mm in diameter, 46mm lug-to-lug, 12mm thick and comes with a 22mm lug width. So it generates a confident wearing experience. The unique Zebra-like pattern of the Damascus Steel case is barely visible at some angles and under certain lighting conditions, whilst it can roar intensely under other circumstances. Perhaps surprisingly, the alloy is soft to the touch yet sometimes it appears as if I can feel the tiny ridges which separate the two types of steel. Am I imagining this? Perhaps. Nevertheless, the visual and physical experience of the Damascus Steel case is superb and I particularly like how the large screw-down crown of 7.7mm feels: light like titanium and easy to grip. 

McQuaide didn’t skim on the other things that make up the watch so that indeed you get a sporty everyday timepiece you can wear daily (duh) with great confidence and a daring inclination for adventure. Atop the dial we find a piece of double-domed sapphire with multiple layers of inner anti-reflective coating. The crown screws-down as we know so does the see-through case-back made of a piece of sapphire which together endow the Cosmopolitan C1 with a more than reasonable 100 meters of water resistance. Through the case-back we can admire a Sellita SW200-1 caliber which ticks at 4Hz and comes with ±41 hours of power reserve, a powerhouse used time and time again in a great variety of watches and which is proven to be indeed solid. Lastly, The C1 is also equipped with generous applications of BGW9 lume on the hand and applied markers, not the printed Arabic numerals located at the cardinal points. (A la Rolex Explorer 1 ref. 114270.) 

Well, that was a lot, wasn’t it? 

Design 

And to begin talking about the design of the McQuaide C1 we must go back again to the Damascus Steel. It is my first experience seeing this particular alloy in the metal (I’m sorry about all of the lame puns today) and I must say it is much more interesting to look at in real life than it is in photos. I don’t know if all Damascus Steel cases come with the same lightness in color and to the touch, but here it feels as if I’m handling a titanium watch and I find the airy tone of the mixed steels quite compelling. The lines that come from the folding of various layers of the two steels create random wave-like patterns which at times do remind me of some animal coat and some other times of wood grain as if the case is made of several pieces of wood coming from different trees and covered in metal. What is perhaps the most mesmerizing is how I can see the patterns but how they decide to come in and out depending on the angle at which I’m looking at them and of the lighting conditions, and of the fact that one set shimmers whilst the other doesn’t. 

The case then, beyond being made of Damascus Steel, presents a traditional cushion shape which is oval-square, with four dominating large curves which square off at their corners where the mid-case curves down slightly, stubby lugs which appear (but are not) soldered to the mid-case, slab-slided flanks, and a fixed bezel which frames a large dial opening. Obviously, the metal the case is made out of accentuates and exaggerates the particular profile of this type of body which I find to be really quite superb here. To the point where someone like yours truly who didn’t really care for cushion cases before now believes that they are the ultimate modern expression of neo-vintage horology. In a good way that is. And so we have the ideal, no less interesting as it is composed of two massive sword-shaped hour and minute hands, polished and beveled and lumed, a seconds hand with a claw-like counter-balance, also polished, and complemented by an arrow-shaped element and a red tip. (The hands remind me of the Damascus swords.) 

Moreover, the swollen hands are matched by prominent hour markers of two different types: obelisk-shaped applied markers in most places and printed Arabic numerals at the cardinal points. The applied markers are made of polished surrounds and large real estate of lume at their center, and indeed the BGW9 here glows in all of its might, whilst the printed markers are not lumed. That is alright as one can easily tell the time at night even if only eight of the twelve markers are endowed with luminescent material, and the nice thing here is that this juxtaposition of applied and printed elements add depth to the dial which would have otherwise looked too flat. (Even though the black dial is complemented by a sunburst effect.) Speaking of which: McQuaide is releasing the C1 in a total of four color variants including this black one called Midnight, a red one called Solstice, a dark orange version called Sunburst, and a green variant called Evergreen. Note that the latter three have a fumé effect. 

The Heart of the Matter

In the introduction (which was way too wordy) I mentioned that, oftentimes, watch nerds (us) gloat over brands’ singular technical or visual inventions which are the main attraction of the watches. A unique movement, a new dial construction, or an innovative case material which fills in all of the pages of the script alone and leave no room for all the other mechanical parts or design elements that could be cause for celebration as well because…they actually don’t exist. But a watch like the McQuaide Cosmopolitan C1 bridges a complex gap between what is common, overdone, and re-used ad nauseam and what is too out there, way too complex, or too avant-garde to make for a practical timepiece to wear daily. What I mean is this: Damascus Steel could be something a bit strange to use for a watch case, so is a claw-shaped seconds hand counter-balance, or the deliberate choice not to lume four of the 12 hour markers. 

However, put together they support one another and make one look at home on the C1 for they would have looked like odd ducks isolated on a different watch. So, at the heart of the matter is the fact that McQuaide created a coherent and compelling package for a new sports watch which borrows enough of the classical design elements of horology to make it look the same as other things, but which introduces enough of new materials and designs to make it look different enough yet not weird. A balance not easy to find and a gap difficult to bridge. 

Conclusion 

At the time of publishing this review, the McQuaide Cosmopolitan C1 is almost fully funded and you have until November 22, 2025, to either take another look at this collection and/or transfer $691 USD (on the low end) or $723 USD (on the higher end for a single watch) from your bank account to the Kickstarter campaign to help it come to life. As a reminder, there are four versions of the C1 to choose from and deliveries are slated for May of 2026, which gives you plenty of time to take action before your next summer vacation. I’m glad I got to see this model in the metal and discover Damascus Steel in the flesh for the first time as I am now a convert. 

Thanks for reading.