We're off to Indies.NYC in October
On 15 October, Garrick will be at Indies.NYC in Manhattan. One evening, one room, around twenty independent watchmakers, and a few hundred people who came specifically to talk about watches. If you're in New York that week, come and find us.
What Indies.NYC actually is
Indies.NYC was founded in 2024 by Jon Cruys, a Belgian collector who had spent years attending fairs and evidently decided he'd had enough of them. It runs twice a year, for one evening each time, in a private space at Hudson Yards. Attendance is capped at around 350 people.
The part that makes it unusual is the bit you can't see on the night. Indies.NYC doesn't sell exhibition space. Most fairs work the other way round: you take a stand, you pay for it, and the size of your stand tends to reflect the size of your marketing budget rather than anything else. Here, the makers are sought out and invited by the organisers. Nobody buys their way in, which means the room is curated rather than rented. It's a small distinction on paper, but it changes the whole evening.
Why we said yes
Our watches don't always photograph well. That sounds like a complaint, and it isn't. A guilloché dial works by catching light from different angles as the watch moves, and a still image can only ever show you one of those angles. Frosting, a hand-cut snowflake finish, the depth of ink sitting down in an engraved numeral: all of it needs turning in the hand.
So an evening built around handling watches and talking to the people who made them suits us rather better than a glass case ever will.
There's something else happening at this edition, too. Indies.NYC is launching a scheme called 1% for the Next Generation, in which 1% of the net proceeds from every watch sold through the platform goes to a watchmaking school. Each maker picks the school themselves: the one that trained them, one near where they work, or another they'd like to support. Given how few places still teach this properly, that seems commendable, and we’re happy to be a part of the initiative.
The details
Indies.NYC Hudson Yards, Manhattan, New York, Wednesday 15 October 2026, 3.00 pm to 9.00 pm
Entry is free, but you'll need to register in advance. The room is small, so it's worth doing sooner rather than later. Full details are on the Indies.NYC website.
It also falls neatly on the day before WatchTime New York opens at Gotham Hall, so if you're coming into the city for that week anyway, this is an easy addition to the diary.
Come and say hello
We spend most of the year in a workshop in Norfolk. It's a fine place to make watches and an awkward place to drop into on a whim, which is rather the point of nights like this one. Bring questions. There'll be watches to put in your hands and a great deal to say about how they got made.
Simon is in New York from the 15th to the 17th, not just for the evening itself. If a room with a few hundred people in it isn't quite how you'd like to look at a watch, that's understandable, and there's an easy alternative.
Get in touch, and we'll put something in the diary. A coffee, a proper conversation, or simply a quiet half hour with no queue behind you. It's a rare chance to do any of that without a transatlantic flight at one end of it, so it seems a shame to waste.