Latest watch news · Page 81

A trip I cannot believe it took nearly six years in my watch media career to make, I have just returned to NYC from Lancaster, PA: the birthplace of Hamilton watches. With 2026 being the 250th anniversary of the U.S., it was clear to the Hamilton team that it needed to do something special for … Continued

In the past few years, Union Glashütte, the sister brand of the more high-end Glashütte Original manufacture, has strongly focused on connecting its watches with car-related events and car-inspired designs. Take, for example, the Limited Edition Sachsen Classic 2025, the Noramis Date Deutschland Classic 2025 with an MB wheel-inspired design, or the BBS-styled Noramis Date […]

Geneva-based luxury goods group Richemont reported a 11% increase in sales at constant exchange rates (+5% at actual rates) for its 2025/26 year, closing at the end of March, at EUR 22,4 billion. At EUR 3.5 billion, the profit for the year’s continuing operation is up 27%. The trend for the fourth quarter remained positive with sales […]

The pocket watch format is experiencing an unexpected renaissance. From auction salerooms to high street queues, collectors of all stripes are talking about pocket watches more than at any time in recent memory. That makes it a perfect time to continue our series on groundbreaking historical pocket watches, including Breguet No. 160. This installment analyses the Leroy 01, which reigned as world’s most complicated watch — by most measures — for 85 years. The calm before the storm On the first of November 1897, Charles Piguet began work on an ébauche for which no contract yet existed. In his workshop at Le Sentier, a stone village strung along the floor of the Vallée de Joux at an altitude where winter arrives early and stays long, he opened a commission that would occupy the better part of seven years and produce the most complicated portable timepiece ever constructed. The formal agreement with his client, the Parisian house of L. Leroy & Cie — formerly known as Le Roy & Fils — would not be signed until January 1898. Piguet started anyway. In the Vallée de Joux, a man’s word was sufficient. This detail — two months of work before the ink dried — says something essential about the relationship between the French brand and the Swiss établisseurs on whom it depended. L. Leroy & Cie, founded in Paris in 1785 by Basile-Charles Leroy, had maintained that relationship across generations. When Louis Leroy, who had acquired the firm in 1889 and established a ma...

Bremont is a brand that almost literally fell from the sky, and that’s probably why its Altitude collection of pilot’s watches is the most important one. So when there’s an all-new addition to the Altitude lineup, it’s worth investigating. The new watch doesn’t disappoint: the Bremont Altitude MB Meteor Time Zones proudly shows its Martin-Baker […] Visit Introducing: The New Bremont Altitude MB Meteor Time Zones, Part Of The Altitude Air Force Blue Capsule Collection to read the full article.

The short answer: Yes! The Cartier Tank Américaine is a standout watch that looks and feels a lot more versatile than it lets on. Let’s find out why! What We Love: A versatile yet elegant design A sportier remix of a legendary icon Wears comfortably on the leather strap What We Don’t: Readability suffers in the first and third quarters The crown is small and fiddly Where’s the display caseback? Overall Rating: 8.5/10 Value for Money: 8/10 Wearability: 9/10 Design: 9/10 Build Quality: 8/10 I think that, since I began working at WatchAdvice, my opinion on Cartier has changed the least. I’d already heard so much about it from every corner of culture; rap songs and rom-coms sing equal praise of the Parisian powerhouse. So, when this opportunity came along, it simply allowed me to get closer to a brand I had already learned to appreciate. With closeness, though, comes closer scrutiny. Cartier bears the weight of a rich legacy on its shoulders, and even the smallest deviation can have Cartier fans questioning their loyalty. Its model lines, in both jewellery and watchmaking, have become so iconic that remixing them is a massive risk. Getting it wrong, depending on who you ask, is intolerable. These are the stakes Cartier faces with the Tank Américaine. How could they possibly change the formula of such a universally popular watch collection while preserving the original DNA? That’s what I aimed to find out when I took the Tank Américaine for a spin some time ago...

Last year, we launched our first Ride to Conquer Cancer collection alongside a two-day, 200km ride for the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. The response was incredible. So, we’re doing it again. The 2026 Ride to Conquer Cancer is on, with Matt Smith-Johnson once again leading our “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop” team into the saddle for two days and 200 kilometers. To back the team this year, we’ve expanded the project to three pieces — all designed to support the cause and look good doing it. The 2026 BOLDR Conquer Limited Edition Chronograph For year two, we wanted to push the design further while keeping what worked the first time around. Mechanically and dimensionally, the watch is unchanged from the 2025 release — same 41mm titanium Venture case, 12.5mm thick, 46mm lug-to-lug, 20mm lugs, same 200m of water resistance, screw-down crown, and flat sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating. Inside, the Seiko VK64 mechaquartz again — quartz accuracy with the snappy mechanical feel of a real chrono pusher. What’s new is the finish. The middle of the case is now done in a saturated pink Cerakote, leaving the rest of the watch’s technical foundation untouched. The watch was once again designed by longtime W&W; collaborator and team rider Matt Smith-Johnson, who explained his thinking: “The Princess Margaret has been using the slogan ‘Carry The Fire’ for the last couple of years. To me, that’s the passion for creating change in the world. As with our t...

What We Know Arken, the UK-based microbrand, has come back into the spotlight with the next public edition of its popular traveler dual-time watch, this time with a "Sage Grey" dial. It follows two preceding versions, one with a grey dial and one with a black dial, both of which were introduced back in 2023 and offered first as 200-piece preorders, a restock, and then an open-ended run early last year. While those versions are no longer available to order online, Arken founder Kenneth Lam told me that those editions can still be found at shows and via the brand's slowly growing network of retailers. And while the brand was busy assembling watches and fulfilling these orders all of last year, those who keep a close eye on the brand or have gone to any of Arken's meetups will know that a few "Speakeasy" editions have since popped up, available only in person and at these specific shows and meetups, often coming with a Cerakoted case. But finally, this new Sage Grey Alterum marks another reference that will be available to the broader public.  First introduced earlier this year at British Watchmakers' Day, this new dial takes the classic British racing green and desaturates it to an extreme, offering only a small hint of its verdant nature in what otherwise appears to be a quite monochromatic dial. A sand-colored dual-time hand adds a subtle touch of warmth to the otherwise cool dial, which complements the grey hue of the 38mm grade 2 titanium case. On the dial, two small ci...

Pilot watches have always occupied a special place in watchmaking and in our hearts. Large crowns, legible dials, chronographs, GMT indications, and slide-rule bezels all emerged from real-life needs. Yet despite many decades of looking up to aviation for clues, very few modern pilot watches can actually assist pilots in flight procedures. Most are stylistic […]

Minerva brings its back-catalog designs to the modern age with Unveiled Crownless and Unveiled Secret releases

As I write this article in late May 2026, Bond fans want nothing more than news on the next film in the James Bond franchise. We know it’s going to be directed by Denis Villeneuve, but little else has been announced or decided upon. Namely, we don’t know who is going to play 007 as Daniel Craig has apparently given up his license to kill. So on the spectrum of “new Bond stuff” that fans might be interested in, I’m not sure how many waves the release of a 44mm Omega Chronograph with ties to a new Bond videogame is really going to make, but here we are.  The Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light is being pitched as a real life version of the watch the James Bond character uses in the upcoming First Light videogame, which is to be released across multiple platforms next week. First Light is a reimagining of the James Bond origin story, and follows a young Bond through the early days of his career with MI6. The watch in the game is, according to Omega, a tool that appears across several missions, and, in the game, is capable of disturbing electronic equipment and emitting a laser from its strap.  Alas, the real thing doesn’t have complications nearly this unique. It’s modeled visually off of the watch that appears in the game, which incorporates subdials that the player accesses to, I guess, fire lasers from the strap, or something of that nature. So naturally a chronograph was the opportune choice for a watch tie in, and this represents the first ti...

Watch-spotting accounts on Instagram were rewarded during the Met Gala broadcast with a sneak peak at two new Jaeger-LeCoultre (JLC) Reverso models worn by actors Finn Wolfhard and Tyriq Withers. Unveiled officially today, the Reverso Tribute Monoface Small Seconds Or Deco Cocktail brings tasteful gemsetting to the Reverso. Initial thoughts Watch spotting has emerged as a major part of social media culture — a fact that has not escaped brands’ attention. Omega was early to the game, teasing the white-dialled Speedmaster on the wrist of Daniel Craig months before launch, and the brand equipped Delroy Lindo with the new Constellation Observatory at the Academy Awards two weeks before its official unveiling. Finn Wolfhard and Tyriq Withers attend the 2026 Met Gala. Photos by Mike Coppola/Getty Images Now its JLC’s turn — today the brand is launching three gem-set Reversos first seen during the Met Gala earlier this month. Available in 18k white or pink gold, the new editions are elegant on the wrist thanks to their relatively compact footprint — just 45.6 mm tall — and supple gold Milanese bracelets. Each watch is distinguished by bands of baguette-cut stones above and below the dial — replacing the typical Art Deco-style horizontal grooves — but only on the front. Flip the watch over, and it looks like any other Reverso with a solid case back. A cynic might view this as a ploy to keep costs down — to some extent that’s true — but alternatively it gives ...

There’s a tendency, somewhat natural and hard to counteract, to think that a watch needs to be large and heavy to be robust. This, however, is a rather contemporary perception, as vintage watches, even the most rugged of them all, were often sized under 36mm – think, for instance, about the members of the Dirty […]

Serica's latest Ref. 7505 Field Chronometer proves that size does matter after all, delivering tool watch functionality in a 35mm package

One of my favorite things is when a brand releases a watch that feels like the watch they always should have made. I’m sure we can all point to examples of this – that feeling that a new watch really belongs in the brand’s catalog, and we’re kind of surprised it never existed in the first place. That’s sort of how I think about the latest release from Serica, the Ref. 7505 Field Chronometer. Doesn’t it seem like Serica always had a 35mm field watch in their collection?  More than any other watch the brand has released to date, this feels like a distillation of what the brand is really about. You’ll recall that they launched with a collection of military inspired field watches all the way back in 2019, which at the time felt like they were already going a little against the grain at just under 38mm in diameter. In the years since, they’ve iterated on this general idea, with an ongoing series of sporty selections rooted in a kind of imagined vintage world, never borrowing too much from any one classic reference, but pulling from a variety of sources to create something that is uniquely their own. Part of that has always meant keeping the watches fairly compact. Looking over the press materials for this watch and thinking about the direction the brand has gone in, I wonder if, if circumstances had been different, they may have started here, with a 35mm field watch, to begin with.  This is unquestionably the right time to introduce a watch like this, at a mom...

Time flies, doesn’t it? I first had a chance to try out the Serica 4512 California back in 2021. Since then, we have seen plenty of remarkable releases from the Parisian brand. The steadily growing collection was extended with a diver, a travel GMT, and a dress watch. On top of that, Serica kept us […] Visit The Serica 7505 Series Creatively Revisits The Brand’s Inaugural Field Watch to read the full article.

What We Know It's time to put aside the debate of big watches versus small watches. I think we can at least agree that options are a good thing, so everyone can get what they want. With that in mind, Serica has released three new, smaller Field Chronometer watches measuring only 35mm by 9.6mm thick with a COSC-certified automatic movement and three new enamel dials. These three new watches, with stainless steel cases, play off the design language of the ref. 6190 with a few tweaks. There's the slightly larger, fixed bezel with pips at 3, 6, 9, and 12 o'clock. They have a double-domed anti-reflective sapphire that should somewhat magnify the smaller dial. The two-tone cream-and-black "Tuxedo" dial is similar to the ref. 6190 TXD, with hand-applied numerals. The other two, the "Minute Critical" dials in black or olive green, aren't that far from the ref. 6190 "Denali" that is already on offer in a larger size, with added 5-minute Arabic numerals. All three have Super-LumiNova C3 lume. Inside the case is the SoProd M100 movement, which is COSC-certified for accuracy, making it a Field Chronometer in both name and function. The caliber runs at 4Hz, is self-winding, and has a 42-hour power reserve. According to Serica, it also has a decorated plate with Côtes de Genève, and while there are no photos of the caseback, I would assume it is still a closed caseback like its big sibling.  Then there's the final major update: the watch comes with a redesigned Bonklip bracelet, fea...

The 2026 Windup Watch Fair in San Francisco was easily our largest event in California yet! It was punctuated by amazing brands, cool watches, and numerous activities. However, it was the panels that helped maintain that classic Windup vibe and we had four great ones over the course of the event. Precision Meets Passion: Frederique Constant and the Padel Phenomenon Padel is no longer just a trend—it’s a global commercial powerhouse on track to become a $6 billion industry by 2028. Join Kaitlin Derkach (Marketing Director, Frederique Constant) and Diane Gotua (CCO, Pro Padel League) as they discuss the “lifestyle-first” strategy driving padel’s explosive 50% year-over-year growth in the U.S. and why Frederique Constant is betting on this high-energy, enthusiast-friendly sport. EDC Expo Panel: Building a Quiver vs. Collection Many collectors don’t think in rigid frameworks—they follow curiosity and passion wherever it leads. Others work within self-imposed rules around style, function, or brand. This panel brings together Jim Wirth (Founder/CEO at GiantMouse Knives), Christian Freissler (Co-Founder at Evolve Agency and Creative Director at Shinzo Tamura), and Harrison McCrindle (Head of Government Operations at Marathon Watch Company) for a candid conversation about the art, science, and emotion of collecting across knives, sunglasses, watches, and everyday carry. Together, they’ll explore different philosophies of gear collecting, from logical progressions t...

The connection between Omega and movie franchise James Bond 007 is one of the strongest imaginable, dating back to Goldeneye in 1995. Since then, at least one Omega watch has been worn on screen by the world’s most famous secret agent, in every movie released since. And while we don’t yet know who will incarnate […]

In the original James Bond books by Ian Fleming, the secret agent wore the same watch as the author himself, a Rolex Explorer ref. 1016. In the James Bond movies, however, he wore a variety of watches from different brands. Interestingly enough, it was never an Explorer. And as you know, Bond has worn Omega […] Visit James Bond And His Omega Seamaster Watches — An Overview to read the full article.

Omega continues its long-running partnership with James Bond with the new Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light. This time, however, the inspiration does not come from the silver screen. Instead, the watch debuts alongside the upcoming 007 First Light video game from IO Interactive and Amazon MGM Studios. The watch appears in the game […] Visit Omega Introduces The Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light to read the full article.

What We Know Today marks the introduction of Omega's next Bond Seamaster. Don't worry, you haven't missed an announcement of Daniel Craig's successor—this new Seamaster Chronograph is an homage to… a video game. Yes, that's right. The commercial success of Omega's involvement in the James Bond franchise has been well documented, so it seems that a line of watches rooted in its connection to a history of fantasy and fiction through film would naturally extend to adjacent properties. This is the Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph 007 First Light, a remix of the brand's large diving chronograph that appears in the upcoming 007 First Light video game. Interestingly, this is the first Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Chronograph in the James Bond universe—chronographs have made appearances on Bond in the movies, but this is the first from the Bond-tied line-up since the partnership kicked off in 1995 with GoldenEye. Given that it's largely identical to the current Seamaster 300M Chronographs out there, it should feel quite familiar, despite this version's inspiration tracking back to 3D-rendered models. Coming in at a very large 44mm diameter, 17.2mm height, and 52.8mm lug-to-lug, the 300 meter diver comes in steel with plenty of contrasting black zirconium-oxide ceramic, thanks to the white enamel-filled bezel insert, the chronograph pushers, and the trademark glossy ceramic wave-engraved dial of the modern Seamaster 300M. One of Omega's interesting quirks that I've always loved...

The first-ever chronograph in James Bond and Omega's history, this is the new Seamaster 300M Diver Chronograph 007 First Light.

March LA.B is an indie French watch brand that blends retro-inspired design with a California-French surfer lifestyle vibe. Founded in 2009 and based in Los Angeles and Biarritz – hence the LA.B in the name – the brand has a penchant for shaped cases. The flagship AM2 family, an evolution of the foundational AM1 inspired […]

Fashion is a fickle and unpredictable muse, isn’t she? While some predict the demise of the analog watch under pressure from smartwatches, something as unexpected as the Audemars Piguet × Swatch Royal Pop could imaginably swing the pendulum the other way. Could it trigger a resurgence of ye olde pocket watch? And if so, are […] Visit In Case The Audemars Piguet × Swatch Royal Pop Inspired You, Here Are Some Modern Pocket Watches to read the full article.