Chase Fancher founded Oak & Oscar in Chicago in 2015 after spending several years on the design and product side of the watch industry. The brand name comes from Fancher's two dogs (a Yellow Lab and a Boston Terrier), and the founding intent was specific: build a microbrand grounded in American design language rather than the Bauhaus or vintage-Swiss aesthetics that dominate most microbrand catalogues. The first reference, the Burnham field watch, launched in 2015 with a Swedish-flag-influenced dial colour palette, hand-stitched horween-leather strap, and a Soprod A10 Swiss automatic movement, all in a 42mm steel case made in the United States.
Through the late 2010s and early 2020s Oak & Oscar built out a four-collection catalogue around the same disciplined design vocabulary: the Sandford (a 38mm GMT introduced in 2018), the Olmsted (a 38mm dive-styled three-hander launched 2019), and the Atwood (a 39mm chronograph released 2020 with a modified Sellita-base movement). All references share a deliberate attention to ownership ritual: every watch ships in a hand-numbered tin with a leather pouch, custom straps from American makers like Form Function Form, and a notebook with the founder's setup notes. This packaging-as-product approach has become a defining characteristic of the brand.
Oak & Oscar production runs in numbered limited series of typically 200-500 pieces, with most references selling out in waves as new colour variants drop. Pricing sits at USD 1,650 - 2,950 across the catalogue: the Burnham field is the entry point at the lower end; the Sandford GMT and Atwood chronograph anchor the higher end. The brand sits squarely in the same conversation as Lorier, Baltic, Farer, and Maen as one of the small group of microbrands that defines the design ceiling for sub-USD 3,000 mechanical watches.
