BAUME watches combine traditional watchmaking with a fresh and responsible approach to the selection of materials that make up their unique, smart-casual watches.
In their mission to “design for a better tomorrow”, their watches feature a range of straps made from leather alternatives including cork and recycled plastic bottles. The collaboration with Erik Ellington’s HRS brand has helped them explore alternative materials for the watch body itself, by immortalising worn or damaged skateboards that have been used by Erik and his friends.
“We were talking about the challenges with sustainability, and we discussed the importance of re-use. This idea of upcycling, which is very important to BAUME, quickly led to the concept of creating watches from the boards of Erick and his team,” said Philipp Bolthausen, BAUME Creative Director.
Rather than ending up in the trash, each used skateboard deck yields ten circular discs suitable for use as the starting point for moulding the slim and gently rounded watch body. The variation in the colour and texture of the wooden layers in a single skateboard deck introduce subtle differences to each of their timepieces, which are delivered with two interchangeable cork straps in black and natural finishes.
The collaboration has helped each brand share ideas about how to put responsibly sourced materials to good use; Erik was so impressed by BAUME’s use of cork for their straps, that he now produces a cork version of the HRS ‘Del Rey’ shoe which contains no animal products in its construction.
The limited edition BAUME HRS range is available now, exclusively from baumewatches.com
