There is something wrong going on in the watch community. And the problem is that creating a new watch borrowing design elements from another watch is looked down upon, sometimes heavily criticized, and there are even some ill-intentioned people who seem to want to cancel the brands that do this. As if such practice wasn’t common and as old as the world itself, which doesn’t mean everyone should do it—because if everybody did then horology would stagnate—but it is normal to find inspiration in what came before, whether looking at watches, music, food, clothing, or art. We humans build upon what has come before us. It’s part of our nature and it’s frustrating to see people mistake being inspired by a design for replicating a design. Similarly, many people aren’t sure what an homage is and whether or not they should be a thing.  And that’s also a problem. 

Many of the micro and independent brands you cherish today have borrowed design elements from another brand. A diver, field, GMT, or integrated sports bracelet, many of these have something in common with something else, but when a brand, for some mysterious reason, gets the approval of certain popular magazines or YouTubers, it’s ok if they do it. But it isn’t so for a brand which hasn’t been recognized by the celebrities of the horological media. One such brand is Nomadic which is partially misunderstood by many. So today we’re going to take a close look at their flagship collection, the Maraí 401, and judge it on its own merits. Because, spoiler alert, it isn’t an homage to something else but a watch that was inspired by some iconic models that came before it, and I know many of you would want to argue the semantics of this statement. 

Specifications

So, what is the Maraí 401? It’s a dive watch that comes with all the incredible specs we are all secretly coveting and which are normally found in a Rolex, Tudor, and Omega. Wait, I know a Nomadic doesn’t have a COSC, METAS certified caliber but it does have a Swiss made Sellita SW200-1 movement (4Hz/41 hours of power reserve) which we know by now is a reliable and accurate machine even when it’s not regulated. It has become so ubiquitous in fact that it has been in many, many watches in the past five years and for some reason, that has also become a problem for many discerning (I am being sarcastic) collectors and members of the horological media. It works so why not use it? And one could argue that a SW200-1 is all we actually need on a daily basis and it makes sense for enthusiasts who actually use their watches. 

The latter is a jab directed at those who possess luxury tool watches which live most of their lives in a cushiony box inside a safe. For those who use their tool watches a Sellita is more than enough. 

What we also want from a diver is good water resistance which we have here and some, as we find 200 meters of it; a scratch-resistant crystal which hey, we also have here in the form of a domed sapphire crystal with inner anti-reflective coating; a functional bezel with some lume, which also have here for course—a 120-click unidirectional bezel with a ball-bearing type of action and a scratch-resistant ceramic insert; and loads of lume so that we can easily read the time at night (which few of us actually need to do) thanks to generous applications of SuperLuminova BGW9 on the hands, hour markers, and the lumed pip on the bezel. And since we also like to have a diver which is visually versatile, Nomadic endowed the case of the Maraí 401 with a fine alternation of vertical and horizontal brushed surface and polished chamfers. 

So far so good. 

Design

So I ask again—what is the Maraí 401? It’s a diver and as such it has a legible dial and functional bezel. The dial comes with a classic layout for the hour markers, applied, where we find an inverted triangle at the twelve, batons at the three, six, and nine, and circular elements everywhere else. (The Maraí 401 can also be had with a date aperture at the six.) The markers are complemented by polished surrounds which aid in making them pop from the dial and which add an extra je-ne-sais-quoi of elegance for they make subtle contributions of subtle light reflections. The hour hand has a squared off tip, reminiscent of military pilot watches, and pencil minute hand and needle seconds hand painted bright yellow. Luckily for legibility sake, the dial is not glossy black but matte, further making the applied markers and hands pop from it. The minute track for its part is printed white and easy to see at a distance. 

The case is equally well thought out and well executed, and my favorite element of its design are the polished chamfers which fully arch over the mid-case for they continue alongside the lugs. This is visually stunning to look at and is made even more so as the polishing is very well executed. This design particularity of the Nomadic is even more interesting to look at given that it is surrounded by vertically brushed surfaces on top of the case and horizontally brushed ones on the flanks. This denotes that the brand obsessed over the finishing of the case to make it something quite special. Conversely, the 3-link bracelet is standard affair but particularly well made as well: the links are thick and wide, fitting tightly with each other, and the clasp comes with an on-the-fly micro-adjustment mechanism the brand calls “MicroGlide.” 

The fact that Nomadic actually trademarked the name “MicroGlide” indicates they take the work they do seriously. 

The Heart of the Matter

When I first saw the Nomadic Maraí 401 I thought “Darn it, this is a handsome diver that could be a one-watch collection timepiece.” I thought so on account of its classic diver aesthetic I personally am a big fan of, an elegant tool watch that I could wear diving (because I do dive) or going to the doctor’s appointment or to attend the opening ceremony of Watches & Wonders (which I will never attend but wish I could just to piss off many of the snobbish watch folks who attend such events, sporting a Maraí 401 on my wrist.) I am petty I know but I’m also angry sometimes about the shit that’s going on in our non-vital watch community. By the way, I forgot to mention the dimensions of this diver, glorious dimensions which support the internal statement I made just earlier: 40mm in diameter, 48mm lug-to-lug, 11.5mm thick, and a 20mm lug width. 

So what do we have so far? A well-spec’ed diver with a handsome dial, symmetrically laid out, a good case with a nice profile, and a GADA-style character which is important for me. Now, what do people have a problem with? The fact that the Nomadic Maraí 401 has a dial that is reminiscent of a Tudor Black Bay and a bezel design that is reminiscent of a Rolex Submariner. But you know what? I don’t hear anybody shitting on the Tag Heuer Aquaracer for having an Omega Seamaster-like bezel or on a Squale 1521 for having the same dial layout as a Submariner. Why is that? Because Tag Heuer and Squale are respected brands whose blacklists watch journalists don’t want to get on for criticizing them. But it’s ok to give a brand like Nomadic a hard time for doing the exact same thing and that’s what the problem is in the watch world. If you don’t have heritage you are not allowed to be inspired by something that came before you. 

Looking again at the Maraí purely from a specs perspective, it has all we normal humans need in a diver. A good movement, good lume, a legible dial, a scratch-resistant crystal and bezel insert, and a solid bracelet. Looking again at the Maraí from a design perspective, it has the classical type of dive watch design we know we want as it is versatile, elegant but not too much, and that it will age well. (I for one believe that whatever unusual design brands come with won’t age well as people quickly get bored wearing them.) In other words, the Maraí is the type of watch you and I would wear everyday, both on account of the way it looks and what it is made of, which is what you and I are looking for regardless of what others—who have too much time on their hands—would say about its design and what it looks like. 

I cannot afford and I wouldn’t spend $9,000 on a Rolex Submariner, and because many folks wouldn’t either, Hans Wilsdorf created Tudor in 1926 so that others could afford watches with similar designs. See? Wilsdorf himself  began the trend of homaging Rolex so why are you complaining about it in the 21st century? 

Conclusion 

Alright, I’m done ranting. As I hope you could tell, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the Nomadic Maraí 401 and, being who I am, I borrowed the Pitch Black version but also gave the Classic Black and Gold a run because why not? So you know, the Maraí exists in a total of 13 versions in steel and two-tone cases, with black, blue, white, and green dials, and with the option of a date aperture or not. The Pitch Black retails for about $1,240 and the Black and Gold for $2,020. You can learn more about the entire Maraí line up here and I encourage you to explore the various collections Nomadic has to offer. 

Thanks for reading.