Linde Werdelin is one of those independents collectors talk about more than they see. The brand built its reputation on the Oktopus, an angular dive watch with a faceted, multi-part case that looked like nothing else, and it has kept a low profile for a while. The Oktopus III is a comprehensive redesign of that watch, and the most interesting part is that it has gone on a diet.
What changed
The previous Oktopus was a thick watch, 15.8mm tall, and that was always the thing people pushed back on. The III brings it down to 13.6mm, a drop of more than two millimetres, and narrows the case from 47.5mm to 45.5mm. The length stays at 49mm, so it still wears like a serious diver, but the reduction in height is the kind of change that decides whether a watch like this actually gets worn. The signature stays intact: the layered, screwed-down bezel, the exposed hex screws, and the radar-grid dial with its oversized 12 and 6.
Titanium, and bronze for the first time
Four versions launch together. The blue, black and sea-green models use a five-part titanium case, the construction Linde Werdelin has always favoured for keeping a large watch light. The fourth, with an olive-green dial, is cased in nautical bronze, and that is a first for the brand. Bronze is a well-worn material in dive watches by now, but it suits the Oktopus, whose facets catch the warm tone and whose green dial reads as the natural match for a case that will patina over time.
The movement
Inside is the Calibre LW09, an automatic with a 60-hour power reserve, visible through a sapphire caseback engraved with the Oktopus name and the 300m water-resistance rating. That depth rating matters for a watch in this shape: the case has to be genuinely sealed, not just styled like a diver, and 300m keeps it honest. The dial layout is unchanged in spirit, a date is integrated into the radar pattern, and the hands and markers are heavily lumed in keeping with the watch's purpose.
The read
This is a small independent doing the unglamorous work of fixing the one real complaint about a beloved design, rather than chasing a new one. Slimming the Oktopus by more than two millimetres while keeping its proportions and adding a bronze option is a confident way to return. At a price Fratello reports as EUR 17,860 (around US$20,429, GBP 15,495 or CHF 16,500), it sits where independent dive watches of this ambition tend to, and the people most likely to buy it already know exactly what an Oktopus is. The bronze, the brand's first, is the one that will get the attention.
