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A limited-edition mechanical watch turns Oliver Jeffers’ drawings into a tiny universe of stars, inventions, questions, and moving parts.
Oliver Jeffers has always had a way of making large subjects feel hand-sized. The universe, the passing of time, the odd behavior of human beings, the fragile logic of memory — in his books and artworks, these themes arrive through drawings that look almost casual at first, then stay with you longer than expected. His new collaboration with ANICORN follows that same route, only this time the page has become a watch dial.
The Time and Space Watch is a limited-edition mechanical timepiece, produced in 300 pieces, that treats the wristwatch less as an instrument of efficiency and more as a miniature stage for human curiosity. The deep blue dial is scattered with stars, constellations, planets, and four tiny hand-painted symbols: a match, a lightbulb, a book, and a car. Together they read like a child’s map of civilization, which is probably the right way to approach it. Fire, ideas, knowledge, engineering. The grand story, reduced to four small objects orbiting around the hands.
Jeffers’ drawings often carry that useful tension between innocence and intelligence. They look open, immediate, almost improvised, but the thought underneath is anything but slight. Here, the watch face becomes a little pocket cosmology. Instead of using polished markers or conventional numerals, the dial asks you to read time through invention. A match marks fire. A bulb stands in for ideas. A book points to knowledge. A car, slightly comic and wonderfully specific, brings engineering into the picture without becoming solemn about it.
ANICORN has built much of its identity around artist collaborations, and this one suits the brand especially well. The watch keeps the mechanical language intact: automatic movement, sapphire glass, stainless steel case, exhibition back. But the mood is closer to a sketchbook than a showroom. The case, finished in rose-gold plating, frames the blue dial warmly; the strap keeps the piece grounded; the open case back reveals the modified NH35-ATD movement, with a custom rotor and bridge. Even the crown carries a carved eight-pointed star, a small navigational detail for the fingertips.
The most charming part may be the labor hidden inside the playful surface. Each of the four symbolic indexes is hand-painted with micro brushes under magnification, a process described as taking more than two hours and 12 steps per symbol. That matters because the watch could easily have become a graphic exercise. Instead, those tiny objects have the slight irregularity of things made by hand. They are too small to perform loudly, which makes them better.
The packaging continues the story. Each watch comes inside a hardcover book-style box, with original pages created for the collaboration and an autograph from Jeffers with an individual number. It is a clever move, and a fitting one. Jeffers is, after all, a maker of books as much as images. The object begins before the watch is even lifted from the box.
