Orient Watches and "Town and Country"

Have you ever come across a watch labeled "Town and Country" where the ad also said "Orient"? Or wondered why that watch's reference looks suspiciously like an Orient's (but with "WS" at the beginning instead of "WV"…)? Well, here below are some answers.

"Town and Country" is a Hawaiian surf brand, a surfboard manufacturer at its core since the early 1970s, which evolved into a lifestyle brand selling a wide range of clothes and accessories. They are known for their "Yin and Yang" logo.

Since the mid 1980s, and as late as around 2014-15 (but not at the moment), Orient has been producing T&C branded watches. Let's take a look at some examples.

This is one of the more special T&C models, in that it's one of very few that were automatic. Released soon after Orient introduced its first modern movement with a power-reserve indicator in 1996. Two variants were produced – one that had the orange dial as pictured, and one having a blue dial. Hard to find and not 100% Orient is it, but still a true collectors' item!

During the 1990s and 2000s, Orient produced numerous chronograph models for T&C. While the information on the earlier models is scarce, it looks like the ones with horizontal layout (sub-dials at 3, 6 and 9) are the older ones offering 1/10^th second timing. The ones with vertical layout are newer, and offer 1/20^th second accuracy.

The stream of T&C releases continued throughout the 2000s and 2010s, with mostly simple inexpensive quartz watches – analog, as well as digital. Here are some more examples…

A 2010 ad for "Town and Country Street Mix" models, probably among the more serious-looking T&C branded watches:

The following ad from 2012 shows "Town and Country Play" models. Here, as in most other T&C models, the designs used the characteristically fun and cheerful color schemes one would expect from a surf brand.

Another line of models from 2012 was "Town and Country Swim" models, offering 10 bar water resistance…

And here are a few more "Play" models from 2014.

So… no conclusion here really, other than these are real Orients, and if you're into collecting fun, cheap watches but prefer to know they've come from a respectable watchmaker – you can do worse than getting one of these Orient T&Cs.

Watch photos taken from Orient official catalogs and press releases, except the photos of the power-reserve model and the chronographs, obtained from old sale ads.