Farer's Curtis is the brand's pitch distilled into one watch: a Swiss-made automatic in a navy-coated titanium case, sold direct at a price that undercuts the obvious comparisons by a meaningful margin.
The Verdict
At $1,525, the Curtis is one of the more interesting sub-$2k mechanicals on the market right now, provided you can live with a coloured case and a movement that isn't in-house.
The Make
The case is 40mm of Grade 2 titanium, 43mm lug-to-lug, 10.9mm thick, finished in a navy blue PVD with a bead-blasted body and a brushed coin-edge bezel. The proportions are tight. At 10.9mm it slips under a shirt cuff without negotiation, and titanium keeps the weight low enough that you forget it's there by mid-morning. The oversized conical crown has a small bronze 'A' cap, which is the kind of detail Farer does well when it doesn't overdo it. Here it doesn't.
Inside is a Sellita SW300-1 in Elaboré grade, 4Hz, 56-hour reserve, sitting behind a soft-iron Faraday cage rated to 500 Gauss. The SW300 is the workhorse alternative to the ETA 2892 and a sensible choice at this price; the anti-magnetic spec is genuinely useful if you spend time near laptops, speakers, or induction hobs. Domed sapphire with five internal AR layers, 100m water resistance, screw-down caseback. Strap is tan St. Venere leather on a PVD-matched titanium buckle. Built in Bienne by Roventa-Henex, designed in Ascot.
The Fit
40mm cases wear true on most wrists between 6.5 and 7.75 inches. The short 43mm lug-to-lug is the number that matters: it means the watch sits cleanly on smaller wrists where a lot of 40mm pieces overhang. Titanium plus a leather strap puts the whole package well under 60 grams on the wrist. The tan strap reads warmer than photos suggest against the navy case, closer to caramel than camel.
The Context
The obvious comparisons are Christopher Ward's C63 line (cheaper, less personality), Oris Big Crown ProPilot in titanium (more money, less considered design), and Nomos Club Campus (different register entirely, hand-wound, German). Within Farer's own lineup the Curtis sits between the standard Aqua Compressor divers and the dressier Lander GMTs. If you already own a steel sports watch and want something lighter for travel that isn't a Garmin, this is the slot it fills.
The Personal Note
I haven't owned the Curtis, but I've handled enough Farer over the years to trust the finishing. The risk with coloured PVD is always how it ages on the bezel edges after two or three years of desk knocks. Farer's track record there is decent, not perfect. If you're the kind of person who panics over a micro-scratch, buy steel.
