This is a watch personally hand delivered to me by the owner of Vario Mr Ivan Chua. I have personally known Ivan for a few years now. He is a passionate collector of vintage watches and managed to turn that passion into a business. Ivan has a background in design and combined the skill of design with the passion of watches to turn it into a business along with his wife Judy.
Vario recreates watches from the past but with this own design aesthetic. This watch is getting its inspiration from the world war II watches called the “Dirty Dozen” The British military needed a new watch for its personnel and put out a request to watch manufacturers of the time to make watches in large numbers. There were 12 brands who signed up and the rest is history so to speak.
There is a superb article here on Hodinkee all about the dirty dozen watches https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/dirty-dozen-twelve-military-watches
This Vario version comes in a few colours and I would surmise the most popular would be the black dial. I have the white / cream dial here and think its fantastic. Its a no fuss field watch that enables you to tell the time easily. I really like the aged lume on the hands to give it that contrast.
The main feature change to the original is the addition of a crown at 4. All the originals have a crown at 3.
I personally like the crown at 4, I am left handed so wear my watches on my right arm and this makes any 3 o’clock crown point up my arm. A crown at 4 mitigates that somewhat.
This watch is a 37mm which is a great size watch and perfect for many wrists. You get the vintage look and feel with the assurance of a modern movement. Inside this one is a Miyota 82S5 and the reason for this movement choice is that its thin which makes this watch with case 10mm thick, but also it has the sub second dial offering.
Vario also have their own range of straps of which I am using in these photos. This particular watch looks good using all kinds of colours. Here it is on a Vario nato style one.
I have got to know Ivan through the vintage watch world on my Facebook group but also because I have reviewed some of his products. This relationship has grown and now I do all of Vario warranty repair work for the UK. I am pleased to say I have not had to work on many watches but when I do I can repair them. Vario is a family business and they honour their warranty on the watches so if you did ever have a problem you can be confident it would be rectified. I am not being paid to say this either it is my own observation.
watch has a nice caseback which is the silhouette of the British soldier surrendering in Singapore during WWII and a modern Singaporean soldier. A nod to Singapore’s history with the British.
I met Ivan in September of 2023 in my home city of Coventry. I gave him a tour of the city and then for a meal in a 1600 pub locally. Coventry city emblem is a elephant and castle. To honour our meeting he made me a custom caseback for my D12!
There is the review of this watch I produced on my review channel.
If you want to know more about this watch or Vario in general please see this link to their website. Vario https://vario.sg/collections/1945-d12-field
Here are some photos of my version of the D12 1945 Field Watch.
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