Glasgow has quietly become one of the most interesting places in the world to make a watch, and two of its most celebrated brands happen to share the same roof. A few years ago, we teamed up with anOrdain, the outfit that famously built its reputation on doing enamel dials the hard way. Its sister brand, Paulin, was founded in 2013 by a trio of actual sisters and has since cultivated a dedicated following for its use of bold color, Bauhaus-inspired graphics, and a genuine sense of fun. Design and manufacturing are intertwined at Paulin, so when the team decided to build its first proper dive watch, working together on a limited edition felt less like a collaboration and more like catching up with old friends. Friends we knew would be willing and able to revive a dial-making technique most of the industry abandoned decades ago, complete with a few signature twists along the way.

The Mara—Scots Gaelic for "of the sea"—is Paulin's inaugural dive watch, and a genuinely capable one.…