Nezumi Studios is Stockholm’s coolest watch brand — a Swedish design house where vintage motorsport, heavy metal and Japanese folklore collide. It’s the creation of David Campo Cárdenes, a Spanish-Swedish designer and creative director who spent two decades in the international fashion industry before founding Nezumi in 2011 as an outlet for total creative freedom. The name comes from Nezumi Kozō, a Robin Hood-like thief of Japanese legend whose rat-like nimbleness David read about as a child.
The brand actually began with denim — a sold-out run of fifty Swedish-made selvage jeans — before pivoting to watches in 2015 with the Voiture, a 1960s/70s-inspired racing chronograph whose Kickstarter raised over $80,000 on day one and prompted David to go all-in on horology. Every Nezumi is designed and engineered from the ground up in Sweden, assembled and quality-controlled in Germany by partners who work with some of horology’s biggest names, and powered by dependable Japanese Miyota and Seiko movements — a recipe that delivers genuinely charismatic vintage design at accessible prices.
More than a watch company, Nezumi is a petrolhead lifestyle brand: it runs its own classic Porsche club, the Roughneck Brigade™, born of David’s love of air-cooled 911s, and has produced collaborations with legendary Porsche tuner RUF Automobile and thrash metal icons Anthrax. With a growing catalogue spanning racing chronographs, divers, field and pilot’s watches — and a slim automatic chronograph due in autumn 2026 — Nezumi keeps enthusiast publications like Fratello and Worn & Wound watching closely.
Key products
Voiture Chronograph (ref. VQ4.202) — approx. €350–€420
The grandfather of the collection and the watch that launched Nezumi’s horological chapter in 2015. French for “automobile”, the Voiture is David Campo’s take on the classic racing chronograph: a 40mm brushed steel case with a fixed tachymeter bezel, a funky 70s-inspired dial, double-domed sapphire crystal with internal anti-reflective coating and Grade X1 Swiss Super-LumiNova. Inside is Seiko’s VK63 mecha-quartz movement, giving the sweeping chronograph hand, crisp mechanical-feeling pushers and instant snap-back reset of a mechanical chrono with quartz reliability. A retro racer that famously punches far above its price.
View the Voiture VQ4.202
Baleine Automatic Dive Watch (ref. BA4.102)
Nezumi’s signature diver, first launched in 2017 and comprehensively redesigned in late 2025 to widespread enthusiast acclaim. The new generation pairs a refined 40mm brushed steel case — a svelte 12.1mm thick including the double-domed sapphire — with a textured matte black dial, beige Grade X1 Super-LumiNova and a 60-minute unidirectional dive bezel. Powering it is the robust Miyota 9039 automatic with a 42-hour power reserve, and water resistance is a properly dive-ready 200m. Offered on textured rubber or a five-row steel bracelet with toolless micro-adjustment, it’s the brand’s do-everything daily watch.
View the Baleine BA4.102
Press coverage
- Fratello Watches (November 2025) — coverage of the redesigned Baleine, praising Nezumi’s reputation for outstanding, affordable watches with retro style and standout use of colour: Nezumi introduces a stylishly updated version of its Baleine dive watch
- MrWatchMaster — a profile of the brand and its Japanese-culture-inspired limited edition Kozō chronograph: Nezumi watches offer nothing less than perfection