Relio Watches – A New Watch Brand! – Interview

Interview with  Leandro and Anais from Relio Watches

Please tell me a little about yourselves. Where do you come from, where do you live, what do you do the whole day, your hobbies?

We come from Miami, Florida where Leandro studied engineering and now works in biotech. Anais studied advertising and works in Digital Media as a producer, editor, and graphic designer. Apart from our day to day jobs Anais also enjoys songwriting and Leandro enjoys cooking and sports. 

When did the idea for your own watch brand come up? What was the trigger?!

Leandro: Anais use to buy me watches for my birthdays and for celebrations – always from small brands that had unique designs. That eventually lead me to want to learn more and I started diving into the watch world.

It pushed me to want to design something that I thought I would want to wear myself and that’s when I started drawing sketches until I had an idea I was excited about. From there I reached out to other micro brands and one was very receptive to helping me get on the right path. 

Anais: As a graphic designer – I usually gravitate towards interesting design and detail. I liked buying cool and unique watches for Leandro because I knew it was something he would use everyday and wanted them to be different.

I didn’t expect to kickstart his passion for watches but his interest in it got my attention as well. When he set out on this journey I definitely wanted to be a part of it and combine my knowledge of design with his knowledge of watches. It’s definitely been a very fun journey to do together and can’t wait to get to do more!  

Tell me some specifications about the watch!

It’s a versatile and wearable 38mm automatic sport watch with a screw down crown to enable 100m of water resistance that comes on a H-link bracelet that tapers from 20 to 16mm. We’re most proud of the recessed mid case design as well as the uniqueness of the dial layout.

How was the name and the logo created and what exactly does it mean?

Leandro: Relio, is actually part of my middle name Aurelio, it has been passed down three generations and it is really meaningful to me. The phoenix/logo represents rebirth and the start of something new. The same as this venture, it is the start of something new – we want to bring unique designs and push to do something different every time we release a new collection.  

How did you come up with this design?

This collection is our representation of the go anywhere do anything type of watch. Specific examples that we drew inspiration from include the Omega Seamaster Aquaterra 2503.50, Sinn 556, and Seiko SARB series. What all these watches have in common is that they’re all versatile and elegantly sporty. We wanted to keep with these same principles but make it distinct enough that no one would confuse it for anything else.

Why did you choose this two color, red and teal?

These colors came from the idea that was mentioned earlier about making a distinct watch that wouldn’t be mistaken for something else. Anais chose the teal color and Leandro chose red. We felt these colors were bold and we wanted our first launch to be something that most people wouldn’t normally have in their collection.  

 

Are you making the watches or you hired a professional watchmaker?

The individual watch components are outsourced and then assembled before being shipped to us for final quality inspection. In the future, we want to have our individual suppliers ship to us so that we can assemble and do quality control in house.

What do I or my readers have to do to get a watch from you as soon as possible?

You can pre-order a watch online at reliowatches.com!

And what do you want for the future?

In the future, we plan on venturing off into other types of watches. As watch enthusiasts, we dream of having a diverse collection encompassing watches like a diver, a dress watch, a chrono, GMT, moonphase, etc. and we would love to put our own spin on all of those and more. 

Thank you for your interview!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.