Have you ever heard someone claim that micro and independent brands are killing it? You probably have, here or elsewhere, as it is the simple truth. Independently-owned brands, and even more so small shops run by one or a few folks, have the opportunity to try things others haven’t due to their lack of legacy (the immaterial inheritance) and heritage (the material inheritance.) There are no stakeholders to make happy, no long-standing customers to satisfy,  so they pretty much have free reign baby. But not all small and young brands function this way, and those which don’t have no place on Mainspring. Here we like to talk about creativity, the freedom to try things which may or may not work, and that is true whether looking at brands that make hardcore tool watches or those who specialize in the everyday and elegant horology. Because there is room to be creative and bold in all genres of watchmaking. 

And it is no secret that the micro/independent market is over-saturated, and it already was four years ago when I started writing about watches. As it is also the case with the big brands, within our niche world trends come and go, some brands fall in line and others don’t. And oftentimes how they react to the market and consumers’ preferences will dictate their survival or imminent demise. But a rare few still do what they feel like doing regardless of what people want, as the creators of these brands are driven by a profound desire to bring something new to the sandbox,  and that in order to realize their audacious vision, have to turn to Kickstarter. Whilst many established magazines no longer cover Kickstarter Brands as they describe them, here we do. The latest entry into our world is the Pedral Maestro by Kevin Pedral, currently live on Kickstarter through June 13, 2025, with prices starting at $658 USD. 

Specifications 

There are many ways in which to look at the Maestro. It’s a sports watch, a dress watch, and even a Go-Anywhere-Do-Anything watch. What it is for you depends on how the design will, or won’t, resonate with your horological heart. Technically and mechanically speaking, the Maestro is capable and surprisingly comfortable to wear, for an integrated bracelet watch that is. The latter in my experience tend to wear big and to figuratively suffocate the wrist, regardless of their diameter and case material. After sizing the bracelet of the Maestro and sliding my tiny French wrist through it, I was immediately charmed by its form factor. 37mm in diameter coupled to a lug-to-lug of 47.5mm and 9.7m total thickness, the Maestro is darn comfortable to sport. It comes, actually, with the perfect size-to-case type ratio as the dial + bezel combo looks small whilst the case shoots out and down right around the contour of my wrist. 

The perfectly proportioned 316L stainless steel case is scratch resistant to 1200Hv on Vicker’s hardening scale, so is the hexagonal bracelet, which has screwed end-links and removable links (which are push-pins on the prototype I reviewed,) and which will come with two butterfly clasps options, one with a micro-adjustment mechanism. The bracelet has the right thickness and width (22.5mm at the lugs and 18mm at the clasp) to work with the case, and doesn’t feel massive as they often do with this type of design. Further on the topic of great specs we find a see-through case-back equipped with a piece of sapphire crystal, a flat sapphire on top with five layers of inner anti-reflective coating, and the caliber you might have spotted already is a regulated Sellita SW200-1B (4Hz/42 hours of power reserve) with a stated accuracy of +/- 7 seconds per day.  Lastly, there is lume on the hands and applied Roman numeral hour markers at the (slanted) cardinal points. 

Design 

I will get a small kick out of correcting many trolls who believe that a guilloché dial is a particular type of pattern and not a finishing technique. Guilloché refers to the process of removing matter from a surface, akin to carving a piece of wood with a special tool to shape it into a design. So we find a guilloché dial on the Pedral Maestro, actually two of them as their two distinct designs organized on two different levels. At the bottom and center of the dial there is a seemingly infinite number of rhombuses organized in tight rows and concentric circles, becoming indistinguishable as they draw near the pinion for they are too miniscule. On the level above and around it, there are three rows of roof-shaped elements set at an angle, and beyond it and further above, a printed minute track framed by an additional line and complemented by a sunburst effect. As you’ve guessed it, the dial is superb and complex. 

Of particular note are the seamless transitions from one level onto the next, and the juxtaposition of different shapes and how well they flow one into another, creating a little bit of controlled chaos, organized into the overall rounded square shape of the case, bezel, and dial. As you have certainly noticed, the dial is angled, a la driver’s watch, which means that the twelve o’clock marker is at the one and etcetera, further adding a little bit of visual disturbance. And it feels as though the fluted bezel frames the whole artwork quite nicely, for it is polished and that its pattern resembles that found on the second level of the guilloché dial. The dial is further made visually striking for the skeletonized hour and minute hands, and the alternation of small, polished, and faceted hour markers and the lumecast Roman numeral ones. Obviously, Kevin didn’t aim at restraining his imagination and instead allowed it to flow freely until it all came together in a coherent design. 

The singularity of the dial design and construction continues onto the case and bracelet, which form the perfect backdrop, for both work well together as well as standalone elements of the Maestro’s aesthetics. The case, which by the way comes with a depth rating of 100 meters (hey screw-down crown and case-back!) has a particularly striking asymmetrical profile as, on the crown side, it visually angles up then down at the lugs and narrows down towards the center, while on the opposite side, it is mostly straight. On either side, however, the mid-case is framed by two polished chamfers which run to the edges of the lugs and hop onto the first link of the bracelet and continue to the clasp in its entirety. The bracelet therefore has an hexagonal center-link construction and more of an “H” one for the middle links which continue onto the outside of the bracelet. The bracelet’s design doesn’t match the case design nor the dial, but they all work in an unexpected harmony. 

The Heart of the Matter

What you don’t yet know about the Pedral Maestro Royal Purple is that this particular version isn’t part of the main Kickstarter offering. It’s a stretch goal which just became a reality and which comes in two different configurations. Actually, the Maestro comes in five general versions—two Traditional Elegance dials in Mint Condition and Aventurino and three Ultimate Driver’s Experience angled dials in Cosmic Tilt, Golden Trail, and Laguna View—plus two Royal Purple’s and a Verdite Stone Dial. So eight in total. I strongly suggest that you thoroughly study the Kickstarter page to get a better grasp of all of what Kevin is offering (I had to look at it multiple times myself.) But regardless of which version you get, they will all come with the same outstanding spec sheet and intriguing, singular, and bespoke design. And so let’s discuss what the Pedral Maestro is and what makes it so compelling to want to write a short novel about it. 

The first heart of the matter with Kevin’s latest creation is the high level of visual and technical intricacy with which the Maestro is endowed. While in its entirety it is a coherent juxtaposition of various shapes and colors—the latter refers to the fully polished accents of the small hour markers and the matte appearance of the Roman numerals—observed individually, each part of its design shouldn’t make sense next to the other one. Two guilloché patterns living on two different levels, the minute track printed on a sunburst background, the fluted bezel, and the predominance of the rounded square shape all indeed come together into a beautiful organized chaos. So the collection’s name makes total sense given that only a Master designer could have pulled this off. The second heart of the matter resides in the fact that the Maestro symbolizes a new small trend by which micro/independent brands make elegant watches as robust as tool watches. 

This and that other point prove what was said in the introduction about this segment of the watch market. 

Conclusion 

From the date of publication of this review until the end of the Kickstarter campaign, you have two weeks left to decide whether the Pedral Maestro is for you. There are many options to choose from and whichever one you might opt for, know that what you saw today won’t be as good as the final product as Kevin will be making a few upgrades to the manufacturing and finishing of this model. With prices ranging $658-$882 USD for one watch on Kickstarter, I would be hard-pressed to find such an exquisite and singular design paired with such a nice spec-sheet for this relatively small amount of money. Because this is the power of micro and independent brands: to offer something big brands can’t at prices they could never match. And this is why it is crucial to talk about brands like Pedral and at the very least check out Kevin’s work. 

Thanks for reading.