Hands-On: The Wren Diver 38

Around the New York City watch scene, chances are you've run into Craig Karger. He's the man behind Wrist Enthusiast, an Instagram account started in 2015 with a massive following. If you're on the media side of the industry, you'll often get asked if you ever want to make your own watch one day — just as many are quick to say no as ones who do. For Karger, the answer was yes. Turning that desire into actual reality is something else entirely, but here, he has done it with Wrist Enthusiast's microbrand endeavor, Wren. Wren, might I say, in a brilliantly clever bit of branding, is a portmanteau of Wrist and Enthusiast, but embraces its final form with a logo referencing the small bird.

The watches that I got a chance to spend a few days with aren't the first watches from Wren. That inaugural effort was launched last year, with the 41mm Wren Diver One series, which was very well received and sold out in its entirety of 300 pieces. That's usually a pretty good sign that people find your watches appealing, so Wren is now back at it again with the Wren Diver 38, a pair of watches that seem to aim their appeal directly at the watch enthusiast community.

The dials, in their bright fumé colors, retain the same visual language as the ones in the Wren Diver One, but gone is the graphic logo of the Wren bird, with the name remaining in its place. Counterweighting the logo is the printed text above 6 o'clock, which shows a fun inclusion of a feet first dive rating of 660 ft (200m). The Diver 38 comes in two colors — a vibrant green "Seafoam" colorway, and a highly saturated electric turquoise "Aqua." The matte Seafoam here is my pick of the two — the cooling colorway, paired with the dramatic fade to a dark greenish-grey, acts nicely amongst the stark white outlines of the minutes track as well as the lume and printed surrounds of the sandwich dial.

I have a hunch many will be drawn to the Aqua dial, with its vertical brushing and extremely saturated finish showing off different shades depending on the angle of the wrist. It's certainly more dynamic, especially from afar, even though the beige lume and accents on this variant clash a bit in my opinion. In a move squarely targeted at watch enthusiasts, both dial colors have an option for either date or no-date dials when ordering. The no-date dials will not feature a ghost-date, a common quirk where many no-date watches at this price point will still use a movement with a date mechanism, which means a non-functional extra position in the crown, as well as the click of the date change at 12 o'clock.

The Super-LumiNova Grade X1 lume, found on the hour markers and handset, also extends to the infill of the now fully ceramic bezel, with the ceramic color-matched to the dark end of the dial's fumé gradient. On paper, the specs of the stainless steel case — a diameter of 38mm, thickness of 10.7mm (including the sapphire box crystal), and lug-to-lug of 45mm — fall right into that safe Goldilocks zone of numbers often recited by the collecting community, all very reasonable specs for a 200m diver.

Screwed in links on the steel flat link bracelet are a welcome sight, and the milled clasp has a microadjustment system with 12mm of max extension, though it can be bulky when extended. On the wrist, the case has a nice presence, but when I tried them on, I noticed that the bracelet didn't quite drop down as much as I'd hoped for smaller wrists. When I asked Karger about this, he mentioned that it's something he's currently working on with the manufacture, and should be solved for production models. The drop, he explained, would be increased quite a bit so that it can actually drape down on wrists most suited for a smaller watch.

Curiously, the case and bracelet get a steel color-matched PVD coating, which does nothing aesthetically but serves as a protective coating for increased scratch resistance. This is nice for peace of mind, but in my time with the watches, I noticed the case's tendency to pick up fingerprints more easily as well. But that's nothing a microfiber cloth can't solve.

Inside the Wren Diver 38 is an ETA 2982 automatic movement, a classic workhorse with 42 hours of power reserve. It's nice to see the choice of the ol' reliable ETA movement here, in lieu of the mostly used Sellita alternative. It's a big reason why the new diver is more expensive than the previous Sellita-based generation, but allows the case to be slimmed down from the previous 13.3mm height to the now 10.7mm. There's enough standard finishing on the caliber to retain visual interest, but the main focal point will be the custom rotor. Turns out, the Wren logo was moved from the front to the back, this time integrated into a partially skeletonized design.

The first time I saw one of these Wren divers in person, it was earlier this year on the wrist of Karger himself. While the case design sticks to a very traditional silhouette for a microbrand diver, the dial was striking even from afar and instantly got me to notice it on his wrist. And that's the kind of effect that I think has resonated most with the folks buying up his designs. There's a certain balance achieved with the divers, turning certain elements up to 11 when needed, while staying true to form in others. What this results in is a pretty competitive sub-40mm dive watch with a few bells and whistles that make it a unique proposition, even at its price point of $1595.

The Wren Diver 38 in Seafoam and Aqua are both on pre-order with shipping expected in September/October of this year. The first 100 watches will be individually numbered and delivered on a steel bracelet with an additional fitted rubber strap.

For more, visit WristEnthusiast online.

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