The Colors We Come From
Anyone who has spent time in the Southwest knows how much color belongs to this place.
Adobe brown. Turquoise. Sun-washed yellow. Silver. Earthy reds and greens.
They are colors shaped by the land, the architecture, the food, and the enormous skies overhead. When I began developing the first Watchmaker Velarde watches, I did not have to look far for inspiration.
I looked home.
Those colors became the starting point for my first collection.
The Chile Pepper Watch
At the center of the collection is the Chile Pepper Watch, a piece that could only have come from New Mexico.
Chile here is more than an ingredient. It is part of family tables, harvest season, roadside stands, neighborhood kitchens, and one of the questions New Mexicans know well: red or green?
Against an adobe-brown dial, one red and one green chile sit at the center of the design. Antique-inspired lettering gives the watch a character that feels connected to an earlier era without trying to reproduce one.
The dial carries the name Velarde along with the words “Relojeros Esplendidos,” a Spanish phrase meaning “splendid watchmakers.”
The words are more than decoration. Spanish is part of the cultural and linguistic history that shaped New Mexico and the Velarde family story. Its presence on the dial is another small way the watch carries that history forward.
Inside is a Seiko Hattori TMI VJ20 movement, chosen for its reliability, accuracy, durability, and serviceability. It is a true workhorse, which feels appropriate for a watch inspired in part by a family history of ranching, hard work, and making things meant to last.
The 316L stainless-steel case is paired with a mineral crystal and luminous hands for low-light visibility. The case back is engraved with Velarde 1903, a reference to the birth year of Rodolfo Velarde.
A custom-stamped leather band completes the watch, while the 18mm lug width allows the strap to be easily changed for a NATO, Bund, or another style.
This is not a watch meant to sit untouched.
It is meant to be worn.
The Zia Watch
The collection continues with one of the most recognizable symbols associated with New Mexico: the Zia sun symbol.
For the Zia Pueblo people, however, this is far more than an image on the state flag. It carries cultural and spiritual meaning that predates its use as a symbol of New Mexico.
Its design centers on a circle with four groups of rays extending in four directions. Those groups of four speak to direction, time, season, and the stages of life, all connected by the circle at the center.
That idea of continuity feels especially meaningful to Watchmaker Velarde.
So much of this company is about what gets carried forward: family memory, craftsmanship, responsibility, place, and the stories that move from one generation to the next.
The Zia Watch uses a solar-yellow dial with an earth-toned green interpretation of the symbol, colors selected to feel rooted in the New Mexico landscape.
For us, using the Zia symbol also comes with responsibility.
A portion of proceeds from products featuring the Zia symbol supports the Zia Pueblo Education Services Center, creating a connection not only to the symbol, but to the community from which it comes.
A Collection Rooted in Place
The Chile Pepper Watch and the Zia Watch are different in tone, but they share the same starting point.
New Mexico.
The colors, language, history, symbols, landscape, and everyday details of this place all find their way into the collection.
Not because they are decorative.
Because they belong to the story.
These watches begin with New Mexico.