The Chicago based brand Haim celebrates their five year anniversary this year with what is certainly their most ambitious watch to date, the Annum. When brand founder Zakir Miah showed me an early prototype of the watch months ago at a Windup Watch Fair, I was surprised and impressed that he would even think to attempt making a watch with such a niche complication. It resets the brand in some ways, and will likely force people to consider Haim in a different way.
As surprising as an annual calendar from Haim is, if you pull back far enough, there were signs that Miah wanted to move the brand into a slightly higher end and more refined direction going back a few years. The Legacy Automatic, for example, featured a custom decorated movement by an American company, Maryland Watch Works, and the whole watch was a significant step up in terms of finishing and build quality compared to prior efforts. But the real shift came with the Viajero Worldtimer released last year. This watch featured a rather clever modification of a common Seiko-made GMT caliber, replacing the hand for the second time zone with a cities ring akin to what you’d find on a classic world timer. The old-school “globe” dial was meant to recall the most famous worldtimers from the Jet Age, and while the Viajero doesn’t have nearly the watchmaking complexity of those timepieces, it was able to mimic the style of those watches to an impressive degree when you consider the price tag of $799.
The Annum arrives in a 38mm case with a distinctive lug profile that borrows from earlier Haim releases and places it squarely in the tradition of classic, midcentury watch design. Four subdials track the month, date, moonphase, and the day of the week, and there are three dial variants available at launch: Dark Cobalt, Stone White, and Fumée, the latter of which is clearly the showstopper of the group, with smoked sapphire dial that give you a peek at the movement beneath it. The white and cobalt variants each of guilloche that is achieved through CNC machining (not stamping).
The custom annual calendar module used on the Annum sits atop a Miyota base caliber and is based on the architecture of a similar module in the ETA 2890 family, originally introduced in the 1970s. The initial goal, according to Miah, was to create a perpetual calendar by sourcing vintage movements that could be reused, but that proved to be too great a logistical challenge to overcome. The Annum is a middle ground, but a big step forward for the brand.
The retail price of the Annum is $2,149.99, but Haim is offering the watch at $1,649.99 to those who make their reservation early. That’s a very competitive price for a complication like this, and is yet another example in a growing trend we’ve seen emerging over the last several years: the democratization of complications, materials, and watchmaking techniques that were once reserved for only the highest end brands.
I was able to get a little bit of hands-on time with the Annum during the Windup Watch Fair, and the watch definitely feels like a big swing for Haim. It’s noticeably more premium feeling effort, particularly in the smoked sapphire dial variant. This version of the watch seems to be evoking modern indies in a relatively conscious way, while other versions of the Annum (and indeed most of Haim’s collection) is steeped in a more classical aesthetic.
Speaking with Miah, it’s clear that a streak of his own personal taste leans toward the higher end, more experimental side of watchmaking, and he explained that in time he hopes to start a second brand for watches at a higher price point that is distinct from Haim. A potential high horology spin-off brand would be another break from the norm – we’ve seen a number of high end indies experiment with lower priced diffusion brands over the last few years. But this type of growth makes sense for a brand like Haim at this particular moment as they’re finding an audience of enthusiastic watch collectors keen to try new things that are a little less familiar. That’s a big shift from the dynamic in the microbrand space a decade ago, when the scene was dominated by vintage inspired sports watches that tended to all look alike.
For now, the focus will be on delivering the Annum after its formal announcement at this weekend’s Windup. For Miah, there’s special meaning in announcing the Annum at this particular moment, the five year anniversary of his brand and the tenth year of Windup. Both projects, he told me, are uniquely focused on community and bringing people together, and both have expanded their scope in similar ways over time. Haim
Zach Kazan
2025-10-20 14:00:00