Delhi Watch Company is reviving the Villianur, its most affordable watch, and letting its community vote on the dial, hands and movement. Each option comes with its price, so voters decide what the watch is worth as well as how it looks. TAG Heuer, Alpina and Furlan Marri have run community votes before, and watch forums have done it since 2011. We found no Indian brand that had put a production watch to an open public vote.
In October 2026, Delhi Watch Company posted on Instagram that it wanted to "build a watch with its community". The watch is the Villianur, DWC's slim, Roman-numeral dress watch and its cheapest model. DWC isn't just bringing it back. It is asking its followers to vote on the dial, the hands and the movement before it goes back into production.
Brands often ask followers to pick between two colours in an Instagram story. This goes further, and as far as we can tell no Indian watch brand has done it before.
The watch being redesigned
The DWC Villianur is named after the temple town on the edge of Puducherry. It is a 38.5mm dress watch, 7.5mm thick, with Roman numerals, a sub-seconds dial and a quartz movement. It came in turquoise blue and salmon, and it was the easiest way into DWC's catalogue.
Delhi Watch Company
Villianur
₹1.8K
It is a sensible watch to experiment with. A simple, affordable dress watch gives voters real choices without many ways for the design to go wrong, and a lot of people can afford to buy whatever wins.
How it works
Voting happens on a dedicated site, vote.delhiwatchcompany.com, over several rounds, each covering one part of the watch. Voters see renders of each option, choose their favourites, and can leave an email to hear when the watch goes on sale. They don't need an account.
The unusual part is that each option shows what it would add to the price. A plain sunburst dial costs nothing extra, for example, while more elaborate finishes add a few hundred rupees. A running total shows what the watch would cost with the choices so far. In DWC's words, the point is to reach the "best permutation" transparently.
Why it's innovative
The price is part of the vote. Most community votes ask people what they like. DWC asks what they like and would pay for. An enamel dial looks good in a render, but a price next to it makes voters think about whether it is worth the extra on an entry-level watch. Every brand weighs that trade-off before a launch. Here the buyers weigh it themselves.
It's one watch for everyone, not a configurator. Brands such as Undone let each buyer build their own watch. DWC's voters are choosing a single production watch, so the community has to agree, and everyone who buys it gets the same thing.
It's open to anyone, at an entry-level price. Earlier community-designed watches were mostly forum projects for members, or Swiss watches costing many times more. Anyone can take part in DWC's vote, and the finished watch should still be one of the cheapest in the Indian microbrand scene.
It's a first for India. We looked at the major Indian microbrands and found the usual Instagram polls, but no brand that let the public decide the design of a production watch over several rounds.
Has anyone done this before?
Yes, though not often, and not in quite this way.
Watch forum projects (2011 onwards)
The first community-designed watches came from forums. WatchUSeek's Chinese Mechanical Watches subforum has made a "forum watch" almost every year since 2011, including time-only watches, a GMT and a tourbillon, with members debating and voting on the specs. The Dutch P1lot One and a Czech Chronomag project worked the same way, and the Chronomag watch was made in a run of 33, all sold to forum members. These were enthusiast projects in small numbers that few outsiders ever saw.
TAG Heuer Autavia (2016–17)
This is the best-known example from a big brand. For its "Autavia Cup", TAG Heuer put 16 vintage Autavia references up against each other in a public vote, and more than 50,000 fans took part. The winner returned as the 2017 Autavia. The scope was narrow, though: fans chose which old watch to bring back. They didn't design a new one.
Alpina Community Watch Project (2021)
Alpina went further. In 2021, community members used a configurator to choose the movement, case finish, dial, hands and strap, then voted on the combinations. The result was three watches: a Startimer, an Alpiner and a Seastrong. This is the closest earlier example to DWC's multi-round format.
Furlan Marri Community Design Lab
The Swiss-Italian brand Furlan Marri is running its own multi-round design lab, with voters choosing the style, case, dial and movement of its next watch, which only registered participants will be able to buy.
Kickstarter does not count
Many "crowdsourced watch" lists are really lists of Kickstarter campaigns, such as Filippo Loreti and Yema's Superman Heritage Bronze. Those were crowd-funded: backers paid for a design the brand had already finished. DWC is asking for opinions, not money.
Why it matters
DWC has built its catalogue on Delhi stories chosen by the brand: the Everest that went to the summit, the Golden Arrows Vayu and the Devanagari chronograph. This time the buyers get to choose. For a young industry that mostly takes its cues from Swiss and Japanese brands, an Indian microbrand trying a format only a handful of brands worldwide have attempted is worth noticing. If you care what the next Villianur looks like, go and vote.
