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The Metro collection is Nomos at its most self-assured: a single design language spun into an entire urban wardrobe, from discreet 33mm daily wearers to complication-rich statement pieces. It began life in 2014 as the launchpad for the Nomos Swing System, the brand’s first fully in-house escapement, and has been quietly expanding in scope and confidence ever since.
Designed by industrial designer Mark Braun, the original Metro distilled Berlin cool into Saxon rigour: fine wire lugs, punctuations of colour, and a dial that nods to 1930s instrument clocks. That tension – Bauhaus minimalism and function against contemporary watchmaking craft – is what allows the family to stretch in so many directions without losing its centre of gravity.
Central to the Metro story is the Nomos Swing System, the in-house escapement that quietly turned this young Saxon brand into an established manufacture. Before its debut in the original Metro, Nomos still relied on outsourced escapements; with this proprietary system, it took control of the heart of the watch, from balance spring to pallet fork. You may not see the benefits, but you will experience them: better rate stability, stricter quality control and maybe just a little pride that the movement ticking away inside is genuinely Nomos through and through. In typical Glashütte fashion, it comes with little fanfare on the dial, but it is the technical backbone that allowed the Metro collection to grow in both variety and ambition.
The original Metro distilled Berlin cool into Saxon rigour
At one end of the collection’s spectrum sits the Metro 33, a shrunken rendition that proves small does not mean simple. Once offered only in rose gold, it now arrives in steel with silver, sage and muted red dials, each enlivened by pops of colour and paired to light grey vegan velour straps. It is the most distilled expression of the idea: all the wire-lug charm and slender profile, edited down for smaller wrists and more discrete tastes.
On the opposite end you’ll find the Metro Neomatik 41 Update, the extrovert intellectual of the family. Here the thin automatic DUW 6101 movement underpins a 40.5mm case and that signature “Update” date ring, where twin neon orange markers glide around the dial to frame the current day of the month. It’s clever, legible, and just playful enough to remind you that German engineering can, on occasion, crack a smile.
Complication, though, is not new to the Metro line. The 37mm Metro Date Power Reserve adds both a date and a sliding power-reserve indicator to the core design, powered by the hand-wound DUW 4401 calibre. The Metro 38 Date stretches the case to 38.5mm and brings a neatly tucked date at six o’clock, driven by the in-house hand-wound DUW 4601. Together they show how far the collection can travel simply by tweaking scale and function, while the typography, lugs and needle hands keep everything unmistakably Metro.
That is ultimately the brilliance of this collection: you can move from a petite dress watch to daily-wear automatic with an orbital date display, and never once feel you’ve left the same family of watches. Across its many references, Metro never loses the plot: this is a watch built for the city and all its contradictions, without ever losing its soul.
In that way, perhaps it’s the perfect watch for the Square Mile.
For more information, see nomos-glashuette.com
