Noah’s New Timex Makes Caring About the Oceans Punk as Hell

Welcome to Dialed In, where we’ll highlight the very best, most interesting, and coolest new watches in the world.

The watch: Timex’s Waterbury, redone by the downtown ethical skate lords at Noah.

The single very best thing about it is: The dial, featuring a turtle wielding a knife and holding up a middle finger. It’s like an ordinary turtle heard about those of the Teenage Mutant Ninja variety and thought: That’s who I want to be when I’m all grown up.

The backstory: Noah’s collaboration with Timex is meant to bring attention to the scourge of ghost nets: fishing nets that have been dumped overboard and often entrap, endanger, and kill underwater creatures like fish, dolphins, whales, and knifeless turtles. Noah has a way of lending its full-throated support to charitable efforts, whether they’re around business transparency, the environment, or feminist bird-watching clubs. And they somehow pull it off without it feeling hokey or like it’s some corporate activation ginned up solely for the purpose of increasing the brand’s Q score. Instead, founder Brendon Babenzien makes a crunchy idea like ghost net awareness feel a little punk—not unlike a turtle with a knife.

This piece matters in the world of watches because: This is the very first watch Noah’s released. This year, watches have become a growing concern for the streetwear set: Supreme put out a $14,000 blinged-up bonanza with Jacob & Co. while decorating jackets and plates with a design based on the dial of the Rolex Daytona. Kith also put wristwear out with G-Shock. As watches have increasingly come back into sharp focus for guys, streetwear brands are finding ways to pull them into their orbit. The easy trick is to incorporate some PG-13 language into the often-stuffy world of horology: Supreme’s Jacob & Co. watch has the phrase “Fuck Em” on the dial while the caseback of Noah’s Timex is etched in big letters with the phrase “GHOST NETS SUCK!” They totally suck, man.

There are simply not a ton of very cool watches that can be had for $125. Sure, it doesn’t have the mechanical movement, or the other bells and whistles—a chronograph, perpetual calendar, or tourbillon—that make watch purists drool. But for the large chunk of the population unable to plunk down the cost of a lightly used Honda Accord on a watch, this is a more-than-excellent choice: 10% of all the proceeds from sales will go to Ocean Defenders Alliance, an organization that actively goes out and removes debris from the ocean (think of it as an underwater beach cleanup). To get even more eco-warrior, the band is made out of recycled fibers.

What to say when someone asks about your cool new watch: Picture this: someone stumbles over and asks for the time. “What time is it?” you might say, gesturing to the hell-raising turt on your wrist. “It’s time to rid the oceans of debris that kills sea creatures like Hank [at this point you’ve given knife-turtle a name] here.” Now there’s an icebreaker.

Where and when to buy it: The watch will be available at Noah’s website on Thursday, November 26th, at 11am EST. Get a new watch before your turkey’s in the oven.