Fam Al Hut: Breaking the Algorithm

We live in an extremely online era. And any watch enthusiast with an Instagram account is currently being served a steady visual diet of hardstone dials, skeleton displays, and resized sport watches (and collectors partying in Geneva and Dubai). If you are living your watch-collecting fantasy vicariously through social media, you’d be forgiven if you feel like the whole watch world is focused on aesthetics.

With an enviable price point, especially given the attention to detail and mechanical mastery of their pieces, Fam Al Hut watches have quickly caught the eye of collectors who are drawn to the unique infusion and innovative watchmaking displayed by this youthful company. And don’t get us wrong, we love exotic and openworked dials, but we also get giddy when a brand busts out of the algorithm.

That is why the Shanghai-based watchmaker Fam Al Hut is poised to become one of the most talked-about independent watchmakers of 2026. And a big reason for all the buzz was the brand’s Möbius timepiece, which seemed to come out of nowhere to win the “Audacity Prize” at this year’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie (GPHG).

Fam Al Hut is not the first Chinese watchmaker to win a trophy at the GPHG (that would be CIGA Design, which won the “Challenge Watch” category in 2021 for its innovative Blue Planet automatic wristwatch). Despite this, there is still an assumption that “haute horlogerie” is exclusively the domain of the Swiss. Fam Al Hut’s founders, Xinyan Dai and Lukas Youn, want to disprove that.

Dai and Youn share creative yet diverse backgrounds. Youn is into writing, music, and photography. Dai is accomplished in art and creative design. They met through an online community of watch collectors but bonded over a shared love of travel, astronomy, design, and science fiction.
 

In May 2024, Youn decided to create a timepiece and discovered that his friend Dai was also thinking along similar lines. So, they decided to join forces to create China’s first haute horology brand. And like any good astronomy enthusiasts, they decided to shoot for the stars by creating a watch that could compete with the best in haute horology. Moreover, they named their enterprise Fam Al Hut after the brightest star in the southern constellation Piscis Austrinus, Fomalhaut.

By April 2025, the new brand brought a prototype of its first model – the Mark 1 Möbius – to Time to Watches in Geneva. To say it made a big bang is an understatement. The compact 42.2mm × 24.3 mm × 12.9mm case is unconventional, and the complications – a biaxial tourbillon, retrograde minutes, and a retrograde jumping-hour complication – are out of this world.
 

Youn and Dai then took the Möbius on a mini world tour of watch fairs, from London Watch Week to Dubai, refining the design language along the way: The compact, in-house movement is housed in a capsule-shaped case. Its lugless architecture, curved profile, and elevated sapphire dome all use advanced miniaturization to help redefine traditional spatial awareness.

By the end of the year, Fam Al Hut was producing limited editions of the Möbius Mark 1, called the Nebula, with the Maison de Revolution.

Very few brands are this successful straight out of the gate – especially when the bar has been set so high. But the Fam Al Hut team is dedicated to creating ultra-high-end watches and keeping production in China.

Designed in Chongqing, every aspect of the Möbius – including the hand-wound M01T calibre – is now produced in Fam Al Hut’s new Shanghai manufacture. For collectors, accessibility is also alluring. The starting price of just $32,000, which might sound like a lot, but it’s actually an absolute steal for a tourbillon, especially one with this level of finishing.
 

Fam Al Hut is also making waves with its materials. The limited-edition Nebula, for example, is the first watch case created entirely from Amorphous Zirconium – also known as Bulk Metallic Glass (BMG) – an unconventional alloy that is nearly as light as titanium yet boasts a Vickers hardness of 600, making it significantly more scratch resistant.

In the world of haute horlogerie, China is mainly discussed as one of the most important markets, but Fam Al Hut is setting out to make the country one of the most important watchmakers as well.
 

For more information, check out the Fam Al Hut website.