Arcturus

Arcturus is a Singapore microbrand founded in 2017 by Alexander Ian Loh, a legal counsel with a French multinational by day and, by night, a watch designer and watchmaker. It is named for the brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, reflecting the team's hope of becoming a supernova among microbrands and putting Singapore on the horological map. The four-person team also includes Ronald Chiam on finance and treasury, Sattish Segaran, a mechanical engineer who serves as Chief Artistic Officer, and Vin Chng on operations and logistics. Its Arcturus Promise is that no timepiece will go uncared for: every watch is tested and regulated before shipping, and LC-2 buyers receive a two-year international guarantee followed by Arcturus covering 50% of maintenance and repair costs for a further ten years.

The Lion City 1, launched on Kickstarter in 2018, was fully backed within an hour, raised almost S$100,000, and now sits with collectors in 15 countries including the US, UK, and Japan. It celebrates the Roaring Twenties with art deco case lines, a 42mm × 12.9mm case in steel or PVD bronze, and a double-domed sapphire crystal, with a motif of Singapore's Helix Bridge on the caseback. Its black or white mother-of-pearl dial is built from 20 components held in a metal cage, combining applied indices with a sandwich-dial look and Roman-numeral cut-outs filled with Super-LumiNova, and carries a raised sub-dial at six o'clock showing either 24 hours or a sun and moon. A transparent power reserve indicator let the date window move from three to twelve o'clock for symmetry. It runs on the Miyota 9132 (4Hz, 40-hour reserve) with a signed rotor and Côtes de Genève finishing, and was reviewed by Monochrome, Esquire, and 28 Days Earlier. The LC-1R reissue, seen on its Carnelian model, reworks the design in a 40mm × 13.8mm steel case with a carnelian dial, keeping the Miyota 9132 with a power reserve indicator and a sun and moon indicator, on a tapered crocodile-grain leather strap rated to 50 metres. Verdite and Pietersite versions complete the trio, priced from S$1,508 to S$1,768, and all three have sold out.

The Lion City 2 Vanda Tourbillon takes its name and motif from Singapore's national flower, the Vanda Miss Joaquim, which adorns a hybrid eyelet-and-solid caseback with an opening onto the tourbillon. Inside is the Peacock SL-5200 flying tourbillon, in a 44mm × 11.8mm 316L steel case with a flat sapphire crystal, descended from the LC-1's cushion case with slimmer lugs and finished in four polished and brushed treatments; faceted hands align with a bevelled Orchid Coin at twelve o'clock. Dials come in aventurine, malachite, and white guilloché, with rose-gold versions in red aventurine and green meteorite, rated to 50 metres. Current list prices are S$2,088 for the Malachite, S$2,388 for the Rose Gold Red Aventurine, and S$2,688 for the Rose Gold Green Meteorite; the Aventurine and Guilloché have sold out.