Jeremy, the curator  

It starts small. You don’t know much about watches, and you’ve never cared much about watches. And then, one day you start looking. You find a watch brand here, a brand there. You find a thread on Reddit forty pages deep about micro brands. Now it’s 1 a.m. and you’re up to speed on NH35 movements. Next, you’re bookmarking specific watch models and watching YouTube videos. A titanium field watch from a company you’ve never heard of out of Denmark is calling your name. Then it’s a diver from some two-person operation in Chicago. Or a GMT that costs $640 and looks better than anything Swiss you’ve seen.

The bookmarks pile up. You’ve got a folder in your browser labeled “watches” and it has 80 links in it and half of them are dead now and you can’t remember why you saved the other half. You’ve got screenshots on your phone. You’ve got a note in Apple Notes that just reads “Nezumi Corbeau…look into this” and you don’t remember what that means anymore.

And then one day you actually want to buy a watch. You can’t find the one you actually wanted. So, you start over from scratch and spend another three hours down the same rabbit hole.

That’s the problem this site solves. Not for you, not exactly — it was built for the person who made it. But if you found your way here, you probably have the same browser folder. You probably have the same problem. So, grab a drink and pull up a chair.

Micro Alley is one person’s curated short list. Mostly microbrands. Some heritage names that earn it. A few macro brands with fantastic well-priced models. No algorithmic recommendations. Just one gentleman’s taste, with a bias toward watches that don’t need a famous name to justify their existence.

Every watch on this site got here for a reason. If it’s not here yet, it might be coming. This is a live list. Most recently added in a dropdown will show you what’s new. Have a great watch I’m missing?  Please let me know at microalley@icloud.com. Create a log in, bookmark some models that speak to you. And enjoy.