Explore Marin Instrument

Marin Instruments grew out of Justin Walters’s two overlapping interests: watch repair and graphic design. Before designing watches, he designed skateboard graphics; that eye for bold, readable shapes carries through to the wrist. Founded in 2019, the American brand took the compact skin diver as its starting point, rather than the oversized professional diving watch.

The Skin-Diver gives that familiar format a distinctly graphic treatment. Its dial mixes triangular, circular, and square markers, with broad hands and little visual clutter. The original Swiss-made watches pair 200 meters of water resistance with the automatic Sellita SW200-1. There’s vintage influence in the proportions, but the crisp black-and-white presentation avoids the usual aged-dial effect.

The Standard Skin-Diver uses a black dial for the most restrained expression of the design. The Polar Skin-Diver reverses the contrast: white dial, black-surrounded luminous plots, matte-black hands. The Alpine Skin-Diver introduces a green dial and steel bezel, changing the watch’s character without abandoning its clear, spare layout.