Zelos
Zelos was founded in Singapore in 2014 by Elshan Tang, who had been collecting watches since the age of 15 and, by the early 2010s, had turned that habit into an informal trading business alongside his mechanical engineering degree at the National University of Singapore. Reselling the same established brands and designs eventually lost its appeal, and Tang decided the only way to get something genuinely different was to design it himself. The brand's name comes from the Greek word for zeal and passion, a fitting label for a one-man operation built entirely around Tang's own taste in unusual materials and design.
Zelos brands itself as 'innovative watchmaking that dares,' drawing on materials rarely seen at its price point: meteorite, metal recovered from sunken submarines, bronze, and Timascus, a titanium-Damascus composite Zelos introduced to watchmaking as a world first. Every model is designed personally by Tang, built around premium hand-wound and automatic movements, and released as a numbered limited edition rather than an open-ended production run — the brand's stated aim being value and originality well beyond what the price tag would suggest.
The catalogue spans extreme-depth dive watches such as the Hammerhead, rated to 1,000 metres, and the Abyss 3, rated to 3,000 metres, alongside field and pilot watches like the Skyraider, Eagle, and Aurora Field, chronographs including the Starfighter — named for the Cold War-era Lockheed F-104 interceptor prized for its radical, streamlined speed — and the Vitesse and GT, hand-wound dress pieces such as the Comet and Nova, and its most ambitious releases to date, the Mirage Tourbillon and Mirage 8-Day Skeleton.
The brand has drawn steady trade press attention for the gap between its pricing and its engineering: Hodinkee profiled Zelos as 'a one man army with unstoppable momentum,' Watchfinder & Co. said of the Mirage that it 'should cost $100,000 ... but it doesn't,' and Fratello and Worn & Wound have both reviewed later releases such as the Spearfish and Horizons GMT favourably for their step up in fit, finish, and value.