Hodinkee
Introducing: Ianos Amfivios (Live Pics)
What We Know Today, Ianos, the Greek microbrand best known for its Greek history and culture-inspired dive watches like the Avyssos and the Dytis, is back with a new dive watch that was never meant to be. When Ianos introduced the Dytis last year, it was noted as the last in a trilogy of dive watches from Ianos, after which they would move on to the next thing. Well, Ianos is still mostly sticking to that story, but in the meantime, we have the Ianos Amfivios, a civilian edition of a special-edition watch Ianos produced last summer for Greece's Underwater Demolition Command. The new watch, built on the same dive-watch platform as last summer's Dytis (which TanTan went hands-on with here), is a solid next step for a brand that has iterated gently, even as it's taken big aesthetic swings in developing its collection. And truly, few, if any, other watches on the market scratch the same itch as Ianos's watches do. That said, the Amfivios is about as mass-appeal a watch as Ianos has produced, thanks to the military-demanded touches that set it apart from the Dytis. The Amfivios is, for example, the first dive watch since the original Avyssos to include any kind of scale on the rotating bezel. And where previous Ianos watches have used the small seconds subdial as a visual gag, here it is a functional subdial, with hands, markers, and everything. That's not to say Ianos has purged all that makes these watches, frankly, a little funky, though. The unique date at 12 remains, with ...
