In recent years, the Windup Watch Fair has played host to a number of notable debuts from some of our favorite watch brands. It’s a great time to launch a watch, after all. With hordes of watch enthusiasts descending on Chicago’s Venue West over the weekend, brands had a captive audience to launch splashy new releases. Christopher Ward, a Windup mainstay for years, keenly understands this, and jumped at the chance this weekend to debut colorful new versions of The Twelve in a new 38mm case size. The enthusiast favorite size rounds out a varied collection of integrated bracelet sports watches that have driven a lot of interest in the brand since they launched a little over a year ago, and Christopher Ward, as always, is having some fun with color in this new batch. 

The brand has dubbed these the “Ice Cream Collection” for their bright colors, all of which are inspired by ice cream and thus feel perfectly timed as a summer watch release. The new, cleverly named colors are Biel-Berry, Mint 38, Peach Sellita, and Made in Mangohead. They all feature the now familiar Christopher Ward flag motif repeated across the dial, and come on integrated stainless steel bracelets as well as color matched rubber straps. We had a chance to see these in the metal in Chicago over the weekend, and, pardon the cliche watch writer terminology, the colors really do pop. My personal favorite is easily the Peach dial, but talking to fair attendees over the weekend it was clear that all of the variants had their fans. 

These watches are very much the Twelves we’ve gotten used to, but with slightly scaled down dimensions. What’s new, and available for the first time in a steel Twelve, is a clasp with integrated micro-adjustment. This is the same clasp that is featured on the new Twelve X (Ti), and offers 3mm of on-the-fly adjustment to dial in the perfect size. A welcome feature for sure, especially in those hot summer months when wrists are known to change size at the drop of a hat, an increase in humidity, or an over-indulgence in your favorite ice cream.

The Ice Cream Collection is a limited edition of 200 pieces per color, and were made available to order exclusively at Windup over the weekend, with remaining stock available beginning on Thursday through the Christopher Ward website. The retail price is $1,275, and delivery is expected by late July. Christopher Ward