The monochrome mastermind: Derek Mon’s near-perfect 3-Watch Throw Down

Andrew McUtchen

There are watch collectors, and then there are watch thinkers. Derek Mon, known to the internet as @theminutemon, is firmly in the latter camp. When he walked onto our video shoot set in New York, he arrived the only sensible way: double-wristed, three watches distributed across two wrists, having taken the subway like a man with nothing to lose and everything to prove.

What followed was one of the most satisfying three-watch collections I’ve had the pleasure of interrogating. The thesis is simple and devastating in its coherence: a monochrome rotation built for every occasion, zero dead weight. A diver, a dress watch, a chronograph. All grey. All considered. All keepers.

The anchor is a Seiko SJ093, the 2023 recreation of the original 62MAS diver, at a more manageable 38mm. Derek has owned virtually every modern iteration of this lineage and sold them all the moment this arrived. It’s easy to understand why. That dial is something else, a storm-grey, almost cloudy depth that “sunray” simply doesn’t do justice to, topped with a mintish lume and chunky indices that warp deliciously through the box crystal. At 12mm thin, it wears like a dream. And in a worst-case scenario? “It’s just a Seiko,” Derek deadpans. They’ll never know it is so sought after that it sells for a noticeable premium on the secondary market.

The second act is a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Duoface in steel, medium size, now discontinued, worn on a Milanese mesh bracelet that Derek owned for years before finally putting it to use. The pairing was, by his own admission, a revelation. The Reverso’s notoriously brickish profile finally drapes properly on the wrist when the mesh does its liquid, flattering thing.

Two dials, dual time, manual winding, and lume, on a dress watch, no less. Worn to Watches and Wonders, to friends’ weddings, to everywhere. A genuine everyday watch hiding inside a grand complication.

Then the closer: an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 38mm chronograph in, of course, grey. Derek’s first AP, acquired at retail on his first allocation, and the watch I admittedly couldn’t stop trying on off-camera. There’s something about a 38mm Royal Oak chronograph that just solves everything about the icon that always seems to wear a tad bigger than its diameter suggests. It takes the brilliance and the architecture and makes it wearable, liveable, daily.

When you lay all three out together, you see the mind at work. A man who has built not just a rotation, but a system, a dive watch, a dress watch, a chronograph, complications covered, a colour palette locked. Chips, chips, and chips for dessert, as I may have suggested at the time. But it’s classy. It holds together with a conviction that most collectors spend years chasing.

Derek’s channel, his family’s authorised dealership Carat & Co., his high-engagement YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok channels, and his co-hosting duties on the Wrist Enthusiast Radio podcast, all of it comes from the same place: a genuine, infectious love of watches that isn’t really about watches at all. It’s about people. Connections forged in collector meetups and watch fairs that end up at a Chinese hot pot on a Tuesday, barely talking about horology. That’s the thing that keeps its hooks in all of us. And Derek Mon, it turns out, is a brilliant argument for why. But don’t just take my word for it. Go on, scroll back to the top, watch the full video, and be sure to leave us a comment.