We held Anoma’s first major event to launch the A1 Slate, and this is what happened

Russell Sheldrake

We have been building our Discovery Studio concept now for about two years, and it was clear on Thursday night that Anoma, its founder Matteo Violet-Vianello, and the A1 Slate launch event are the exact brand, person, and watch we have been building this for. To help celebrate the launch of Anoma’s first standard production model, we wanted to make sure the people of London got the chance to experience the watch in person. So we brought Matteo and the two prototypes he had into our London Studio for an evening of watch talk, design dissection, and inspiration discovery.

I hope you’ll forgive a slight indulgent tangent at this point. I have known Matteo for five years now – in fact, this event was held on the fifth anniversary of the day we were first introduced over email. We worked together at A Collected Man for over two years, working on the company’s content side and handling some of the most extraordinary watches that came through those doors. Having seen Matteo grow over this past half-decade from our time together at ACM to stepping away from the watch world professionally for a short time to now launching this brand, it was a rather emotional evening for me to see so many come together in support of what he has built.

It is clear for me to see how much of his past experiences in handling the most incredible watches in the world he has poured into this latest creation – and to be reductive rather than additive in his approach to his second release, distilling the original Anoma A1 down to an even purer form. To hear Matteo put that into words on Thursday evening in front of the crowd was great to hear, as he went through all of the tiny details that he had to consider when designing his original and this new release. For example, to achieve the highly reflective, curved case, he opted for a grade of Japanese steel, as it is possible to reach a clearer and cleaner shine on it than if you go for the more prevalent Finnish steel.

Once Andrew and Matteo had finished their talk, it was time to get hands on with this new watch, as the two prototypes were handed around and everyone got the chance to have some 1-on-1 time with their creator, it was clear to see that it was a fan favourite straight away. There were plenty of questions about this unusual piece, and it seemed like most of them were answered by just getting it in the hand. As Matteo was keen to point out, this is an incredibly sensual watch, and so you need all of your senses to truly appreciate it. While over 200 people ordered the original, the majority of them were doing so sight unseen, and so now that more people are getting the chance to experience this watch, it will no doubt mean we will be seeing more of these enter the wild.

The event was capped off by the announcement that it will be possible to place pre-orders for the A1 Slate in both our London and Melbourne Discovery Studios right now, continuing our philosophy of supporting young, promising brands. With multiple orders being placed on the night, you could sense a bit of a buzz building around this pebble-like watch throughout the entire evening.