BEHIND THE DESIGN:
TS x UNIMATIC Modello Tre Watch
Todd loves a good watch — and UNIMATIC makes the type of watches that can make even the most die-hard watch nerd feel as if they’re visiting Q’s workshop in a Bond film. The watches are rugged, yet their design is refined. “I’m an obsessive Pinterest user, and I first discovered UNIMATIC there. I was instantly drawn in, and started incorporating UNIMATIC into my seasonal mood boards, always envisioning our guy, his life, and of course, the watch he’s wearing,” said Todd. He met the men behind the brand — Giovanni Moro and Simone Nunziato — during his runway show at Pitti Uomo in 2024 and the connection was immediate; a collaboration was inevitable.
Enter the new Todd Snyder x UNIMATIC Modello Tre U3FB-TS, handmade in Italy in a limited-edition run of a hundred. "We are proud to have had the opportunity to work with a man and a designer we truly admire. Going from being customers and fans of the brand to sitting at the same table and collaborating on this timepiece has been a privilege we are truly excited about,” says Giovanni. In celebration of this first-of-its-kind collaboration, we spoke with both Giovanni and Simone (in Milan and London, respectively) to get the story behind their business, work and the watch itself.
Image caption: Giovanni Moro (above) co-founded cult watch brand UNIMATIC with Simone Nunziato.
How did the two of you meet?
Giovanni: In university, at the Politecnico di Milano; we both studied industrial design.
Simone: I remember endless late nights working and smoking cigarettes.
G: [After we graduated] I was working with physical objects — north of Milan, and towards my hometown, there are a lot of companies that do metal house accessories: door knobs, towel bars, lighting, machinery.
S: I went on to the visual side of things. I worked in advertising, art direction…I found myself in London, which is where I’m currently living, though I travel back and forth to Milan.
And did you have the idea for UNIMATIC as students, or…?
G: The seeds, maybe, they were there back in the day. But there were almost ten years between finishing school and starting UNIMATIC. Simone and I were thinking and talking a lot about watches — not from a business angle, but more like “Ah I got myself this old Seiko,” and “Nice, but my Casio is cooler,” that kind of thing. We made our first physical watch in 2015.
What does the name, UNIMATIC, mean?
G: It’s a blend of “unique” and the Greek word automatos, which is the etymological origin of the word “automatic” — a thing that is self-moving or self-acting, like most watches. The Tre Modello isn’t automatic, actually, but it is matic, moving.
Image caption: Shockproof and Waterproof Case
Have you ever spotted your watches in the wild?
G: There was a photo from London Fashion Week 2017 of a Japanese designer, Mihara Yasuhiro. He’s now a friend of ours, but back in the day, he was a big name in Japan, and very far from what we were doing in our little apartment-office. That’s a moment I will always remember, an external acknowledgment of what we were doing. Finding out we were on Todd’s mood board a few seasons ago was another one.
S: Masamichi Katayama, too; he’s a god of Japanese architecture, and he wrote a piece speaking very highly of us — we are quite successful with designers, architects…they see something in our product that resonates with them.
What drew you to the partnership with Todd?
G: Working with someone that does something we like is key…if you asked me to do a Barbie watch, I wouldn’t know where to start, and it would show in the product. UNIMATIC is a small company, so it’s very nice when someone deeply understands what we’re doing and takes the time to get to know what’s behind the product. It was striking to see that Todd himself was involved in the project…it was very rewarding to work together.
And how did you approach designing the Modello Tre?
S: It’s inspired by a chrono diver; divers usually have a rotating bezel, but this has a fixed bezel…it’s a bit more Brutalist.
G: Designing watches, you are creating something that has very much been accomplished already. You can’t reinvent the bicycle; Todd isn’t reinventing the overshirt…there are wheels, there are buttons. To do your version of these things requires knowing what great designers have been doing for over a century and making tweaks. Watches are simple, but have constraints: it has to be functional, not crazy expensive, ergonomic on your wrist, durable, fit a broad range of people. Within that, you need to work on tiny details, that maybe people don’t even notice, but when you put them all together you get something well-balanced. We try to sum everything up, curate history and make something new that will survive the test of time.
S: We are often classified as minimalist, but I don’t think we are. It’s more about knowing the product and trying to take out what’s not needed or redundant and improve it somehow.
Any advice for someone who wants to start collecting watches?
G: As for everything: study more and buy less. For me, this is the only meaningful advice. The information is out there; it’s hard to get guidance that’s not biased, but at the same time, you have all the material you need to dive deep into the history of watchmaking.
How do you like to work — what do you tend to wear or listen to…?
S: I listen more to podcasts than music — Tetragrammaton by Rick Rubin and How I Built This by Guy Raz are two favorites right now. We are almost always working, so what I wear is what I wear the rest of the time — sweatshirts, comfortable things.
G: From time to time I listen to music…but we are 8 people in the office; there’s music in the background, but it’s not a headphone situation. I wear almost the same clothes every day; my style is very like Todd Snyder’s clothes, actually.
What inspires your work?
G: Our partners. When we work with people, we get a new perspective on our own products. We’re informed by the external world. Milan is a small city, but people visit from all over the world — there is an exchange going on. Living here and doing collabs is very enriching; we get to see things from different points of view. Without it, I have a feeling we could develop very strong tunnel vision…repetition is quite common in the watchmaking world. Also, the fact that we are Italians making watches in Italy is very rare, which is neither good nor bad, but does influence the details of our work.
What has been a surprise to you, after doing this work for a decade?
S: The community is quite strong — the people who want to work with us, and be a part of it, just because they like the brand, is very rewarding. I didn’t think that would have been easily possible. People come to the studio to hang around, have a coffee, say hi…it’s quite cool.
G: In our wildest dreams I could not imagine that one day I would be sitting down with Todd or any of the designers and journalists we have met, let alone that some of them would become friends. Everything has changed because we were lucky enough to have a product that resonated with a niche audience; it’s a very eclectic group. I get to connect with people that I would never have met otherwise.
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