My favorite thing about the watch world is the people. Far and away, my experience of watch enthusiasm has been — if you avoid anonymous comments sections — one of kindness, warmth, and, above all, generosity. This is a world in which people routinely hand you the watches off their wrists, and are always willing to offer up information, experience, and advice. So in that context, it was shocking, but not surprising, when our illustrious CEO, Blake Malin, offered me his own Lorier Hydra Zulu for an extended trial period.

The Lorier Hydra Zulu, which was introduced around Windup NYC last year, has been on my radar since its release. To be frank, the only reason I don’t own this watch yet is that it’s been pretty hard to find one. With the infrequent drops selling out quickly and a real dearth of availability on the second-hand market, my only choice has been to wait for Lauren and Lorenzo Ortega to restock. Thankfully, Blake’s intervention means I’ve had an excellent chance to experience the watch and to see if the Hydra Zulu has what it takes to fill in as my new ‘fallback watch.’

I’ve always resisted the term ‘beater watch.’ While I understand the sentiment behind the phrase, I’ve never liked the connotation. After all, one person’s beater can easily be another’s grail (again, a phrase I’m not a fan of), and, while most use the term entirely innocuously, ‘beater watch’ has always struck me as somewhat… dismissive, if not downright condescending. Still, the idea of having a fallback watch, a watch ready to go whenever you are — preferably one worn without pretense, affectation, or self-doubt — is one I can get behind.

My Fallback Watches

In the summer before my sophomore year of high school, I went shopping in my dad’s closet — better described as poking around looking for stuff to ‘borrow.’ There was always something good to be found and absconded with, only for him to notice several months later and request that I return on my next visit home. I’m not sure what I went in looking for on that day, but I know what I walked out with: an early Victorinox Original Swiss Army Watch with a grey plastic case and red bezel.

The watch was beat to hell, with a worn black and red leather strap and a pockmarked bezel, and characteristic of a quartz watch that had spent god knows how long sitting in a box, it needed a fresh battery. It may not have been what I went in looking for, but it was exactly what I was hoping to find and, somewhat to my surprise, my dad never asked for it back.

Since I pulled it out of a box 14 years ago, this small, plastic Victorinox has been my go-to fallback watch — even when I started getting the watches I’d long dreamed of, I kept wearing my go-to fallback watch, just because. But a 20-year-old, cheap, quartz watch probably has only so much life left in it, and a few years ago I realized that we were reaching the end of that lifespan. I finally reached that point last winter, when the battery died for what would be the last time. Even if I were to replace it, any connection between the crown and the movement has vanished, and estimates for repair are unjustifiable.

Thankfully, a few years ago, I came into possession of the perfect substitute for my worn-out Victorinox: a beat-to-hell Luminox F-117 Nighthawk Series 3400. I’ve written about that watch before (in this excellent roundup of some of our favorite sub-$1000 watches), so I won’t spend too much time on it here, but suffice it to say, this watch has been a genuinely worthy successor to my Swiss Army watch, and should do me just fine for years to come — I hope. Still, my experience with the Swiss Army watch has left me slightly wary, and I’ve been keeping my eyes open for watches that could potentially fill this slot should I ever need to replace my Luminox. 

A Watch Fit for an Arnold

On the off-chance you haven’t sorted this out for yourself, it’s worth saying that I’m not an action movie star. I don’t often find myself in the jungle being hunted by an alien, or face-to-face with international spies. That said, I do have a vivid imagination, and I love a watch that can help put me in that headspace. After all, watches are, in their own way, an escapist tool, a way of helping us put on a persona, whether or not it’s accurate in the slightest.

Lorier gets this, and their watches have, since the beginning, done a great job of tapping into the fantasy element of watch collecting. And while the Hydra Zulu may be a departure from their typical mid-century aesthetic (and a great reminder of the impact color can have on a watch), it accomplishes this with adeptness. I’m not saying that strapping on this blacked-out Hydra makes me feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger (though I’m also not saying it doesn’t), but I am saying that the Hydra Zulu wears like a watch ready for a mission.

That innate wearing experience, paired with the Zulu’s good looks, easy legibility, and impressive value, more than set up this limited production Lorier as a prime contender to take over as my fallback watch. Now, having spent over a month with the Lorier Hydra SIII Zulu on my wrist most days, I can say decisively that it is not going to be my new fallback watch. I can also say that it will, undoubtedly, find its way into my watch collection as soon as I can make it happen.

What I realize now is that my Victorinox, and now my Luminox, satisfy a totally different urge than something like the Hydra Zulu. My fallback watches are the watches I’ve reached for when the last thing I wanted to think about was a watch. They’re the horological equivalent to a great old cozy sweater you only wear at home, on days off — the watches that are most often on my wrist when I’m at home in the fall, spending a lazy Sunday with my family, cooking and watching movies. In a weird way, they’re the watches that represent the most closely guarded version of myself; the part of me that I choose not to share with the world at large.

A few months ago, I went out to San Francisco for the weekend. As I was packing up, I set my Luminox for West Coast time and threw it in my dopp kit. I didn’t wear it that weekend, but it sat in my dopp kit for weeks, sitting next to an electric razor and travel-sized toiletries, ticking along to West Coast time. When I finally took it out and threw it on my wrist, rushing out the door for something or other, I didn’t even realize the time was wrong. That discovery, a little bit later in the day, was a time capsule, pulling me back to that trip for a moment before I set the 12-hour bezel, ignored the incorrect date, and went on with my day.

That’s not an experience I can have with the Hydra. When all is said and done, that’s just not what the Hydra Zulu III is for — it’s too good, too considered, and demands too much engagement. This is a watch I want to take on an adventure with me, not watch someone else’s unfold on TV. It’s a watch I’ll enjoy setting in the morning, and relish as I get to jump the hour hand forward and back while I cross time zones and oceans.

One of the keys to enjoying watch collecting is, I’ve found, meeting a watch where it is, and not expecting from it things it cannot do. I went into my time with the Lorier Hydra SIII Zulu expecting it to be something it just wasn’t, something it could never be. I came away loving it all the more for what it is. So I’m still on the hunt for my next fallback watch, but I know I’ve found my next GMT, and that’s pretty great too.