DESIGN THAT SPANS ACROSS GENERATIONS

THE VEJRHØJ NAUTIC COLLECTION

A shared passion for design, watches and craftsmanship – the kind that goes across generations – brought Janus Aarup, the founder of VEJRHØJ, together with the grand old man of Danish design, Bo Bonfils. 

It all started back in the summer of 2014, where Janus contacted Bo Bonfils to hear about the possibility of developing a new classic watch design together.  

On the phone Bo told Janus that he was on holiday in his summerhouse, and that he could not look at a new project right away. But just before they disconnected, Janus discovered that the two of them were only a few kilometers away from each other. And without giving Bo the opportunity to say no to meeting him; Janus cycled to Bo’s summerhouse to meet him

Initially, Bo had his doubts about the young entrepreneur. However, he soon became intrigued as Janus introduced his idea about a simple watch design made from wood. It quickly turned out that Janus and Bo had much in common as they talked further for 8 hours about their shared passion for watches, design and Bo’s vintage Austin car:)

That same night, Bo made the first raw sketches for the NAUTIC collection. However, it took more than 1 and 1/2 year of developing and testing prototypes before Janus and Bo were satisfied with the result, and were able to start production.

Nautic collection - design process

THE RESULT
The VEJRHØJ Nautic collection is crafted from natural hardwood and merged with steel, high quality Swiss made movements and sapphire crystal glass. With its distinctive dial and bevelled edge glass, the design draws inspiration from old navigational instruments and our Nordic maritime heritage.

The video below were filmed back in the summer of 2015 in Bo Bonfils' house in Raadvad, where we were going through the final visual and technical details of the Nautic collection.