How a Stockholm workshop that started with two engineers has spent 40 years building watches to the most demanding specs it can find
The Royal Capital is barely thicker than a pencil; 7.8mm from crystal to caseback, running an automatic movement so compact that its winding rotor is smaller than a shirt button. The UTC Skydiver is a 44mm instrument with a digital readout, built to 35 Swedish Air Force requirements. Both are assembled by hand, one at a time in a Stockholm workshop.
A small independent manufacturer making a couple thousand watches a year doesn’t usually cover the range from military procurement to ultra-thin dress watchmaking. At Sjöö Sandström, the answer has been the same since 1986: figure out what the job requires, then build something that does it.
Two Engineers, One Premise
Engineering drawings and a Chronolink WT 6202 case tool at the Sjöö Sandström workshop.
Sjöö Sandström was founded in Stockholm in 1986 by Christer Sjöö and Mikael Sandström, both engineers and watch enthusiasts. Sweden certainly had a serious precision instrument tradition to draw from; Swedish-born Victor Kullberg built marine chronometers from London that were known across Europe, earning a royal warrant from the Swedish and Norwegian navies. Sjöö and Sandström weren’t reviving that tradition so much as applying the same instinct: treat the watch as an engineering problem and solve it well.
The first model, the Automatic S1, reached customers in 1993. It was recognized almost immediately, winning the Excellent Swedish Design award in 1995, one of Sweden’s most prestigious design prizes.
Four decades later, the workshop remains independent. Every watch is still assembled by hand in Stockholm and individually numbered.
The Brief That Goes to 459 Meters
Landsort 459m. Stainless Steel / Blue / Blue Rubber. Art no: 003695
Twenty-two kilometers southeast of Landsort island (the southernmost point of the Stockholm Archipelago) the Baltic Sea floor drops to 459 meters (its deepest point). In 2011, that number gave Sjöö Sandström both the name and the specification for their first dive watch.
The Landsort 459m was developed with divers from the Swedish Navy’s Musköbasen naval base, south of Stockholm. They defined what the watch needed to do. Then designers, Stockholm-based Pontus Frankenstein and Christian Halleröd, working with master watchmaker Niclas Höglund, built the form around those requirements, not the other way around.
The result shows it. The completely round case profile came directly from professional diving instruments. The oversized crown guard, the high-contrast dial, the unidirectional bezel, each one traces back to a specific need in the water. The result is a design language that couldn’t have been arrived at any other way.
The Landsort doesn’t look like a dive watch trying to seem serious. It looks like what a dive watch actually is. The current version runs a 42.5mm stainless steel case with 50 hours of power reserve. A bronze-case version has since joined the regular catalogue.
The Brief That Goes to Mach 2
UTC Skydiver. Stainless Steel Black DLC / Black / Black Rubber. Art no: 020364
The UTC Skydiver is what happens when a watch brand sits down with fighter pilots and asks what a watch actually needs to do at high altitude. The answer was 35 specific requirements. Sjöö Sandström built a watch to suit all of them.
The result is an ana-digital instrument, a watch that runs both analogue and digital displays at once:
- Analogue display for local time
- Digital display for a second time zone (because at altitude, knowing the precise time in two zones simultaneously isn’t a convenience, it’s part of navigating)
- Perpetual calendar, chronograph, backlight, and alarm
- 44.2mm stainless steel case rated to 10 ATM
- Swiss-made quartz movement, chosen for accuracy under the conditions pilots actually work in
The watch issued to Swedish Air Force flying personnel is identical to the retail version apart from the caseback engraving. That distinction matters. This wasn’t a civilian watch retroactively given a military backstory. It was built for pilots then made available to anyone who wanted one. That’s a distinctly different starting point.
The Brief That Strips Everything Back
Royal Capital in motion. Total case height: 7.8mm automatic, powered by a Vaucher Manufacture micro-rotor calibre.
The Royal Capital required the opposite approach: remove everything that isn’t necessary then finish what remains to the highest standard possible.
For the movement, Sjöö Sandström partnered with Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier, a Swiss manufacturer in the Val-de-Travers valley that produces calibres for some of the most demanding names in the industry. The calibre used, designated SSG8 in Sjöö Sandström’s own system, uses a micro-rotor.
Here’s what that means in practice: most automatic movements use a full-size oscillating weight that sits on top of the movement which adds height to the case. The micro-rotor replaces that with a small tungsten rotor recessed within the movement’s own footprint. The movement itself is just 2.6mm thick. The finished watch; case, crystal, everything comes in at 7.8mm. That’s thinner than many quartz watches. The stainless steel version produces only 50 pieces per year.
The caseback is sapphire. The movement bridges carry Côtes de Genève finishing, a pattern of parallel stripes applied to decorative surfaces inside the movement, historically associated with Geneva workshops and used as a marker of considered finishing. The Sjöö Sandström logotype is engraved on the movement itself. None of it is visible until you turn the watch over.
Movement Sourcing and What It Signals
Movement assembly and quality control at the Sjöö Sandström workshop on Ringvägen, Stockholm.
Every Sjöö Sandström movement is Swiss-made. The Vaucher micro-rotor calibre in the Royal Capital, the quartz SS G5 in the UTC Skydiver, the automatic SS G15 in the Landsort, all sourced from Switzerland. Cases, dials, and assembly all happen in Stockholm.
The more interesting question isn’t where the movements come from. It’s how the brief shapes which movement gets chosen. A Vaucher micro-rotor for a dress watch where height is everything. A Swiss quartz calibre for a military instrument where precision under pressure matters more than mechanical prestige. The movement is always the answer to a question the brand has already asked and those questions change significantly across the catalogue.
CEO Kristofer Johansson puts it plainly: “We work with some of the finest movement manufacturers in the industry, such as Vaucher Manufacture, to ensure the highest level of precision and reliability. For us, it’s never about rushing the process, it’s about doing things properly, with the right partners, and with a long-term perspective.”
Forty Years, One Address
A Royal Steel Chronograph against the industrial grain of the workshop.
In 2026, Sjöö Sandström turns 40. The brand also took on a new role this year as Official Timekeeper for SAS (Scandinavian Airlines), itself celebrating 80 years in operation. The partnership aligns two organizations with similar coordinates: global in reach, deeply Scandinavian in identity, and built around the practical requirement that time be kept accurately.
When Johansson is asked what he collects outside the brand, the answer is short: “Only Sjöö Sandström, otherwise you don’t believe in the brand.”
“Our philosophy is to create watches that stand the test of time, both in design and in performance. That requires a relentless focus on quality and a deep respect for Swedish watchmaking tradition. In a world driven by constant change, we remain committed to building something enduring.”
— Kristofer Johansson, CEO, Sjöö Sandström
A Navy dive watch rated to the deepest point in the Baltic. An Air Force instrument built to 35 military requirements. A dress watch thin enough to disappear under a shirt cuff. The brief changes every time. The address on Ringvägen hasn’t.
Sjöö Sandström is based in Stockholm, Sweden. The collection is shown at sjoosandstrom.com and sold directly through the brand’s online shop, by appointment, and through authorised dealers across Scandinavia and select international markets.
All images courtesy of Sjöö Sandström
