Visiting The Oak & Oscar Headquarters In Chicago

In mid-August, on my last day in Chicago before flying back to Germany after the Chrono24 get-together, I took a detour I’d wanted to take for years. I finally visited Oak & Oscar’s headquarters, my old friend Chase Fancher’s home base. What started as a quick stop turned into a few hours of watches, drinks, and good conversation.

I have known Chase for way over a decade now, since Oak & Oscar was still an idea, maybe even a prototype tucked in his bag. We met in the press lounge at Baselworld, just two guys talking about a brand that didn’t exist yet. Over the following decade, our paths kept crossing at watch events around the world, and Fratello has covered pretty much every Oak & Oscar release since. Watching Chase build his dream from an idea into an actual, functioning manufacture has been one of the most satisfying things I’ve gotten to witness in this job.

The lounge

Walking into the Oak & Oscar HQ feels like stepping into the coziest watch-nerd hangout imaginable. Think a wall covered edge to edge in Chicago memorabilia, vintage Land Rover ads and posters, and a letter board that reads “Oak & Oscar, Soup of the Day: Whiskey.”

Add an Eames lounge chair, a record player, a proper whiskey bar, and shelves stacked with trucker hats, patches, and watch books, and you get the idea. It is equal parts man cave and brand museum, and if I could bottle up that atmosphere and ship it to every reader, I would. This is the part of the HQ where Chase receives guests, and it’s exactly as warm and unpretentious as the brand itself.

Behind the curtain

Walk past the lounge, though, and the space opens up into something much bigger — the actual operation. This is where Oak & Oscar makes things happen, from assembly to packing and storing the surplus material that keeps a small brand running day to day. I got to see watches and dials in various stages of assembly, cases waiting to be fitted with movements, and trays of dials lined up for QC. Something is grounding about seeing a brand’s entire back-of-house in one visit. It is not as glamorous as a Swiss manufacturer tour, but it reveals everything about how a scrappy, independent American brand actually gets watches onto customers’ wrists.

Everyone I met, including Chase, couldn’t have been friendlier or more welcoming. Honestly, I didn’t expect anything less, but it was still nice to experience that. A genuine, unforced hospitality runs through the place, and it clearly comes from the top down.

Watches, watches, watches

Of course, no visit to Oak & Oscar is complete without spending time with the watches themselves, so I got my hands on plenty of them. Seeing the range laid out together, from the Humboldt and the GMT models to the Olmsted line with its various dial collaborations, is a good reminder of how far the brand has come since that first conversation in Basel. I also got acquainted with some of the fly-fishing-dial editions. Hand-painting each dial is something you don’t see often these days and a personal touch that sets Oak & Oscar apart from the pack.

The real highlight for me, though, was spending time with Oak & Oscar’s new-to-me chronograph, the Atwood. I am a sucker for a well-proportioned chrono, and this one nails it. The size feels just right on the wrist, neither too large nor too small, and the overall execution has the same confident, unfussy design language the brand has built its name on. It might be my favorite thing that Chase and his team have put out to date. Give me the blue-dial version, please. Thank you.

Closing thoughts

There is something special about watching a friend’s passion project mature into a real, respected brand over a decade. Visiting the HQ reminded me why I fell for Oak & Oscar in the first place: the people behind it care, and this shows in every detail, from the lounge on the way in to the watches coming off the bench in the back. If you are ever lucky enough to score an invite to Chicago, take it. Until then, keep an eye on what Chase and his crew put out next. Judging by what I saw on my visit, there are plenty more good things to come.