Quill & Pad
Suggestions for a 3-Watch Collection for £10,000/$13,000
What if you were given £10,000/$13,00 to spend on creating a new collection? With a hypothetical wish list, what would you buy? Raman Kalra shares his suggestions and why.
20,603 articles · 5,802 videos found · page 204 of 881
Quill & Pad
What if you were given £10,000/$13,00 to spend on creating a new collection? With a hypothetical wish list, what would you buy? Raman Kalra shares his suggestions and why.
Teddy Baldassarre
Nearly everything we regard as a modern luxury was once a military necessity. Okay, maybe that’s too broad a statement. But when you consider the impact of inventions like the Internet (set up as a Department of Defense communications network in 1969) and GPS navigation (which still uses military satellites from the 1970s) - not to mention the rise of the Jeep from humble troop conveyance to luxury SUV; the ubiquity of microwave ovens (which emerged from NATO radar experiments); and the enduring civilian stylishness of accessories like cargo pants and aviator sunglasses - a substantial case can be made that goods made to military specifications, or MIL-SPEC, have made an inestimable impact on everyday life. Nowhere is this influence seen more strongly than in the world of wristwatches - not only those intentionally designed for a military or tactical look, but in many styles and genres throughout the industry. From Waistcoat to War: Origin of the Wristwatch While it’s unlikely that a distinctly elegant timepiece, like a Patek Philippe Calatrava or a Vacheron Constantin Patrimony, will put you in the mind of battlefields and trenches, the truth is that wristwatches themselves are essentially a military invention - at least, the ones designed for men. Women had been wearing timepieces on pendants and bracelets for decades, since the middle of the 19th Century, but it was the utilitarian needs of soldiers in World War I that ushered them into general usage for ...
Fratello
Surprise, surprise! Swatch will offer the Omega × Swatch Speedmaster MoonSwatch for sale online in the United States and China starting today. Most likely, the brand chose these countries because they have huge areas without any Swatch boutiques nearby. But while they are the first, with some luck, they won’t be the last. The online […] Visit The Omega × Swatch MoonSwatch - Now Available For Purchase Online! to read the full article.
Quill & Pad
The secret of the Parmigiani GMT Rattrapante, which does not look to have either GMT or rattrapante functionality, is the advance button on the lug. It moves the white gold hour hand forward one hour per push, revealing a pink gold home time hour hand underneath. And how practical this is for travel!
Time+Tide
Adam and Zach discuss the recent Kith Heuer Formula 1 collaboration and the reaction to it - which Zach has dubbed "horological hooliganism".The post Did TAG Heuer x Kith get it wrong? Zach and RedBar founder Adam Craniotes talk watch collabs appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
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Time+Tide
One of the things that makes Seiko such an interesting brand is that it’s not afraid to celebrate its Japanese-ness. This is most commonly expressed through the brand’s dials, which frequently pay homage to different elements of Japanese nature or culture. Some of the best of these are their Presage Arita Porcelain pieces, which feature … ContinuedThe post Is the Seiko Presage SPB445 the best Arita Porcelain dial watch yet? appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Fratello
White-out designs and stealthy black go in and out of fashion, but seeing a resurgence of stealthy cool this year underlines that black is black. And sometimes that is just right. Whether you want literal stealth wealth to go with your fave black suit or are employed as a secret operative, that’s your business. But […] Visit Black Is The New Black! Five Pieces Of 2024 Stealth From Breitling, Swatch, Seiko, And More to read the full article.
Time+Tide
Imagine you're back in high school and the bell rings for lunch. Which 'table' of watch collectors do you sit with? Our community got creative with their answers.The post Horological high school: what watch clique do you belong to? Here’s what you had to say appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Worn & Wound
Pink is everywhere you look these days. Whether at the movies with Barbie and Mean Girls or on the pitch and track with Inter-Miami and Alpine, pink is undoubtedly experiencing a moment. If you need further proof of this, look no further than Pantone, which has named a shade of pink its ‘Color of the Year’ for not only 2024, but did so for 2023 as well. So it’s no small wonder that we’re seeing pink crop up in watches of all stripes recently. One brand that has made great use of pink over the last few years is Bravur, a Swedish micro-brand making excellent watches inspired by cycling. I finally got to see their collection in person at WindUp Watch Fair in San Francisco recently, and I can attest that they are one of those brands whose watches got stuck in the corners of your mind, persistently refusing to give up space. This latest release from the brand is the Grand Tour La Corsa Rosa IV, a chronograph inspired by the Giro D’Italia (think an Italian version of the Tour de France). Now, I am not the person to dive into the intricacies of international competitive cycling, but I can tell you that, similar to the Tour de France’s yellow jersey, each day’s leader in the Giro D’Italia wears a pink jersey, and that it was this jersey which inspired the black and pink chronograph’s colorway. As the Roman numeral in the name would indicate, this is the fourth release in the Grand Tour La Corsa Rosa line of watches. While the most obvious nod to the race are the ...
Teddy Baldassarre
Watchmaking is a trade that goes back to the 16th Century, and building mystique and legitimacy on a long, historical legacy is a common theme we find in many companies that make watches today - particularly those whose roots reach back for a century or more. But which companies have really been making watches the longest? In a way, it’s a sticky question, one that can lead one into a minefield of semantics and trivia. Jaquet Droz, for example, claims a founding date of 1738 but the modern version of the company was established in 2000 when Swatch Group acquired the name. A. Lange & Söhne carries on the tradition of the original company founded in Saxony in 1845 but has really been in operation only since 1990 (and to be fair, the company is very transparent about this). The Swiss-based Graham brand traces its legacy all the way back to the London atelier of British watchmaker George Graham in 1695 but has no connection to it other than design inspiration. In assembling the following list of the oldest watch brands still making watches today, I went with the companies that, in my judgment, can legitimately claim a direct lineage to the original founding, even allowing for ownership changes and periods of dormancy along the way. Without further ado, here is a countdown of the 15 oldest watch brands in the world today; you may be surprised by who is included as well as by who is excluded. 15. Zenith (1865) Zenith's founder Georges Favre-Jacot was only 22 when he founded...
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Monochrome
Despite their original display, which splits time (for most of them) between central minutes, hours in a sub-dial at 12 o’clock and seconds in a subsidiary counter at 6 o’clock, regulator watches are some of the most classic you can imagine. The origin of these régulateur is nothing fancy, it has nothing to do with […]
Hodinkee
Last year we got the XPS, this year the XP TT which means we're talking thinness and lightness.
Zach Kazan and Zach Weiss are back with another video in which they attempt to surprise each other with some watches they’ve never seen before in this new unboxing video. Today, the range of watches includes recent releases from brands large and small, old favorites and new. Zach Kazan is particularly taken with Christopher Ward’s C1 Moonphase (a watch he’ll have a more thorough evaluation of soon) and Zach Weiss is equally impressed with Rado’s recent Anatom (which is discussed further here). Also of note in this episode: a lot of the packaging is top notch, with Peren’s unique “flat pack” design inviting the owner to put the watch together immediately after opening it. The post What’s in the (Watch) Box? appeared first on Worn & Wound.
Fratello
The rigors of everyday life can wreak havoc on your skin. Your hands and wrists in particular have to withstand multiple sessions in which you wash and sanitize them. Most often, the result is irritated and cracked skin that can become extremely dry. And it shows - in your Instagram posts, for instance. Independent research […] Visit New In Our Shop: Fratello Wrist Butter - You Know You Want It, Your Wrist Needs It, And Your Watch Deserves It to read the full article.
Fratello
Although Swatch had been teasing the new MoonSwatch Mission to the Moonphase, or “Snoopy,” for quite a while, weirdly enough, the official announcement came on March 21st while the Swatch × Tate event was happening in London. Today, March 26th, 2024, exactly two years after introducing the first 11 MoonSwatch models, Swatch makes its new […] Visit Hands-On With The New Omega × Swatch Speedmaster MoonSwatch Misson To The Moonphase to read the full article.
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Two Broke Watch Snobs
Swatch has finally unveiled its highly anticipated Snoopy-themed MoonSwatch Mission to the Moonphase. Get release details, specs, and more
Quill & Pad
A pleasure to wear on the wrist, and it looks quite slim; cbut alling it 'ultra-slim' might be a bridge too far. Which means that the quest for the perfect ultra thin tourbillon wristwatch is still open; however, this Jaeger-LeCoultre came very close to being just that.
Monochrome
Lorca is a new microbrand with an inaugural piece offering GMT functionality, which is always nice to welcome to the market. Its Canadian founder (with both Swiss and Canadian roots) now resides in New York, but the watch has a positively European style and Swiss-made designation. The movement is also a step above your typical […]
Teddy Baldassarre
When you think of James Bond watches, the first models that likely come to mind would probably be from Omega, or Rolex, or - depending on which Bond era you prefer - maybe even Seiko. But one of the most memorable wristwatch scenes in Bond’s cinematic history has a Breitling as its star. In 1965’s Thunderball, the fourth movie in the popular series starring Ian Fleming’s Agent 007, star Sean Connery spends most of his screen time wearing the same watch that he wore in his previous three outings as Bond: a Rolex Submariner Ref. 6538, now known by many collectors as the quintessential “James Bond Rolex.” However, in one key scene, Bond swaps out the Submariner for another watch: a heavily modified Breitling Top Time Ref. 2002, a steel-cased, black-dialed chronograph with two white subdials, applied baton hour markers, and a tachymeter scale surrounding the dial. (The actual watch is pictured above, sans strap, photo via Christie's.) In the movie’s fictional universe, the watch - one of many gadget-packed timepieces assigned to Bond by MI-6 weapons supplier Q throughout the film series - is also equipped with a built-in Geiger counter; Bond uses it to track a cache of stolen nuclear warheads hidden deep underwater by his adversaries from the criminal organization SPECTRE. The watch was the only Breitling ever worn by any James Bond actor on screen - though, interestingly enough, another Breitling, a Navitimer 806, also appeared briefly in Thunderbal...
Quill & Pad
Rolex is one of the largest, most prominent brands in the world. Unlike many other brands of this size, Rolex is a private company and so it is somewhat opaque when it comes to hard facts about what goes on behind closed doors. But some numbers can be found online, and are used to determine roughly how many watches Rolex makes a year and how much revenue is made per model.
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Monochrome
The 2024 Formula 1 season hasn’t started yet. Teams are yet to present their new cars and liveries. And yet, the season seems to already be on a rapid pace. Following the announcement last week of a global partnership between H. Moser & Cie. and Alpine Motorsport, which includes the BWT Alpine F1 Team, it […]
Fratello
Building a compact collection that ticks all the boxes is a recurring challenge in the world of watches. And whether it’s hypothetically whittling down or building a dream draft of watches, it can be a lot of fun. Today, we kick off a series in which members of the Fratello editorial team hack through their […] Visit Fratello Editors Share Their Five-Watch Collections: Nacho’s Picks From Omega, Breitling, Panerai, And Cartier to read the full article.
Fratello
Welcome to this episode of Fratello Talks, in which Nacho, Lex, and Laurits try to answer the question: what makes a watch brand great? It’s not as obvious as one might imagine. There are as many factors to consider as there are parts in a watch movement. However, a handful of specific criteria come into […] Visit Fratello Talks: What Makes A Watch Brand Great? to read the full article.
SJX Watches
Just days a week into the new year, Blancpain and Swatch announce an all-black variation of the Scuba Fifty Fathoms, their affordable collaboration introduced last year. The Ocean of Storms retains all the distinctive features of the model, namely a 42.3 mm Bioceramic case containing the Sistem51 automatic movement fitted with a rotor bearing a nudibranch (a shell-less mollusc for those unfamiliar with esoteric marine creatures). Priced at US$400 as before, it will be available at select Swatch boutiques starting January 11, 2024. Initial thoughts When Swatch started teasing this new variant on social media, it seemed to be yet another one-off limited edition available for one day, like the MoonSwatch “Mission to Moonshine Gold” releases last year. However, as more details emerged, it became apparent that this was not the case as this will be part of the permanent collection, bringing the number of Scuba Fifty Fathoms models to an even six. At first glance, the Ocean of Storms bears a striking resemblance to last year’s Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary “Act 1”, a high-end watch that is an actual Blancpain, particularly with the date window and notched bezel. Nevertheless, adjustments to the design set it apart from its pricier cousins as well as its siblings in the Scuba line. It is clearly the most monochromatic and low-key of the range. Priced at US$400, the Ocean of Storms is priced the same as the other variants, retaining its fun and affordable appeal. However...
Quill & Pad
While we are now looking forward to the 2024 releases, Joshua Munchow looks back at 2022, which was a pretty tremendous year for watchmaking.
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