Worn & Wound
De Rijke and Co.’s Balancing Act
The watches made by Dutch independent De Rijke & Co. are all charming and considered designs, but it’s difficult to trace any defined throughline between them. While most upstart brands tend to find their lane and iterate on a concept ad nauseam, De Rijke has consistently kept us on our feet while avoiding the creative quicksand that can come with a successful watch. The brand first made a splash with the Amalfi, a smart, Bauhaus-informed driver’s watch with a clever two-piece case design that could be rotated through 90 degrees to orient the dial at the ideal angle for the wearer to read while their hands gripped a steering wheel or handlebars. The Amalfi had a timeless design and a romantic origin story that involved the brand’s founder, designer and engineer Laurens De Rijke, embarking upon an 11,000 kilometer Vespa tour of the Amalfi Coast. It was a basic design that De Rijke could’ve played with and re-editioned to death, and while the brand has iterated on the Amalfi concept, the approach they’ve taken was wholly unexpected. The watches that followed the debut Amalfis were a series of limited edition collaborations featuring the iconic Dutch cartoon character “Miffy.” The Miffy collabs have featured everything from moonphase designs, to enameled dials, to ceramic cases. While they were a surprisingly playful and whimsical way to follow up an elegant, functionalist watch like the Amalfi, these limited editions all became bonafide hits–to the point ...
