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ART & COMMERCE

Time THE WEWOOD WOODEN WATCH doesn’t come with a lot of bells and whistles. There’s the Crono model, on the left, with its two tiny Log digital screens that display stopwatch, alarm and date functions, and there’s the Date, right, which has just a plain old analog face. But you don’t buy the WeWOOD for the advanced technology. WeWOOD BRANCHES OUT You buy it because it’s singularly beautiful. In fact, since debuting in WITH A VERY DIFFERENT KIND the U.S. this past fall, the one-year-old Florence, Italy–based maker of OF TIMEPIECE. // BY LAYLA SCHLACK wooden watches has received raves from style blogs, fashion mags and, most important, watch shoppers. It’s fairly obvious why: With ebony or maple and often duotone bands and bodies, they look really cool. “At fi rst they were perceived as men’s watches,” says marketing manager Emma Bogren. “But now about forty-fi ve percent of our customers are women going for that chunky, oversize look. We have some more feminine styles, like a bangle, on the way.”

WeWOOD works with American Forests to plant a tree for every watch sold, and most of its material comes from a mishmash of industrial companies that might otherwise discard the odds and ends used to make the watches. The system is imperfect, but WeWOOD is still trying to fi nd reliable suppliers so they can use reclaimed wood exclusively. It’s only a matter of time.