Watch brandsWatch wikiWatch videosVariousWatch calendarSaved articles
PopularRolexOmegaPatek PhilippeAudemars PiguetTudorGrand SeikoCartierSeikoIWCTAG HeuerBreitlingJaeger-LeCoultreA. Lange & SohneZenith

Results for AHCI (Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants)

3,202 articles · 302 videos found · page 29 of 117

Our Favorite Dressy Watches Of 2025 Teddy Baldassarre
Dec 24, 2025

Our Favorite Dressy Watches Of 2025

For a category often seen as a safe harbor for demure and conservative design, the dress watch regularly delivers some of the year’s most memorable releases and 2025 was no different. In fact, we had to do things a little different here by not having any honorable mentions altogether just because all of these pieces really shone. And one of my favorite decisions from our editorial team came together for this story when we decided to award two watches for their awe-inspiring executions of a gold Milanese bracelet. So, without further ado, here are our favorite dress watches of 2025: [toc-section heading="Raymond Weil Toccata Heritage"] Raymond Weil’s Toccata Heritage Seconde/Seconde edition is the fruits of a collaboration between the independent Swiss watchmaker and designer Romaric Andre, known for his playful customization of watch dials. This latest iteration of the brand’s oval-cased dress watch - its name drawn from the world of classical music, a passion of the brand’s eponymous founder - is described as a “horological Simon Says:” its dial is divided into two different shades of anthracite gray, with Dauphine hands in the center, each inscribed with fashion-forward “dress codes” on how to wear the watch. The right sector, with polished indexes, has vertically oriented guidelines on where the wearer’s shirt cuff should land in three different scenarios (business casual, formal, and semi-formal, plus the “sweet spot” halfway divider), while t...

Read article
Hands-On: The New ISOfrane VS 1969 Straps Fratello
Dec 23, 2025

Hands-On: The New ISOfrane VS 1969 Straps

ISOfrane straps have a special place in diving history. As a 1960s creation, the original model became a fixture for divers due to its flexibility, durability, and comfort. Today, modern versions of the straps are used both for their original purpose and as everyday accompaniments. Until now, though, only one design was available. Today, we […] Visit Hands-On: The New ISOfrane VS 1969 Straps to read the full article.

Read article
Best of 2025: Surprises and Unexpected Developments SJX Watches
Rolex Land-Dweller Dec 23, 2025

Best of 2025: Surprises and Unexpected Developments

From one-off artistic creations to new escapement technologies, 2025 delivered more than its share of surprises and unexpected developments. Brands with institutional research and development departments led the way with unexpected material breakthroughs, while Geneva’s oldest watchmaker surprised (and delighted) with a clock of astronomical proportions. Rolex Land-Dweller and Dynapulse Escapement - SJX Given its institutional nature, Rolex rarely surprises, but when it does, the brand does so in a big way. The Land-Dweller was unquestionably one of the biggest debuts from Rolex in a long time. The integrated bracelet design is certainly a departure from the prevailing house style, but the Land-Dweller is a landmark mainly for the movement inside, the cal. 7135 that boasts the Dynapulse escapement. While Rolex movements have enjoyed largely incremental improvements for years, the cal. 7135 in the Land-Dweller is a radical break because it’s an all-new movement with an all-new escapement. The Dynapulse escapement is one of the most forward-thinking inventions by Rolex, arguably ever. A double-wheel, detached and indirect-tangential impulse escapement, the Dynapulse is arguably among the most advanced escapements on the market today – and the cal. 7135 is probably the most precise self-winding movement on the market. More crucially, it is being produced at scale. A new escapement is an achievement, but a new escapement manufactured in large numbers is a bona fide fea...

Read article
Our Favorite Divers Of 2025 Teddy Baldassarre
Dec 22, 2025

Our Favorite Divers Of 2025

With 2025 coming to a close, the editorial team at Teddy is eager to share some of our favorite new releases of the year. We’ll be starting with one of the more competitive and popular categories out there: dive watches. Really any given year is a big year for divers but 2025 had some refreshed heavy hitters as well as some new entries that push the limits of watchmaking technology. We attempted to keep our final picks somewhat tight but there is, of course, a honorable mentions section at the end where we go through some notable new releases from the year. So, without further ado let’s get into our favorite new divers from 2025. [toc-section heading="Longines Legend Diver"]  The category of vintage-inspired divers has only gotten more competitive in recent years, but Longines has managed to deliver a truly wearable and memorable lineup with its Legend Diver collection. Fully refreshed and reimagined in 2024, this white dial take on the line is the latest addition to the family, and has become the missing piece to making the entire collection feel complete, well-rounded, and versatile. It feels right at home with its other family members, carrying on the 39mm diameter, and slim 12.7mm case profile that makes it easy to wear when you aren’t about to dive into the deep, though its 300 meters of water resistance means you very well can without worry. The mid-century design cues look particularly handsome with the crisp white backdrop of the dial, and, combined with the...

Read article
Best Rolex Watches For Women: From Ladies To Unisex Teddy Baldassarre
Rolex Dec 21, 2025

Best Rolex Watches For Women: From Ladies To Unisex

The Crown has a rich history of watchmaking for women dating back to Rolex’s infancy. After all, it was women who first began wearing watches on their wrists in the late 18th century, while men still preferred pocket watches before the convenience and utility of military field watches began to proliferate. Rolex’s first high-profile endorsement of its revolutionary waterproof Oyster case was worn by a female athlete, slung around the neck of British swimmer Mercedes Gleitze as she attempted to swim across the English Channel. Gleitz might not have made it all the way across on that try, but the watch came out unscathed after 10 hours in the cold water, ticking the time away accurately, making for amazing marketing fodder.  Here in the 21st century, Rolex still offers a catalog with extensive sizing options and decorations on its most popular models. Of course, anyone can wear any watch they like, but there are several pieces that, as a woman myself, I find uniquely more compelling than others. So, we’re gathered here today to go on a journey through what I find to be the best Rolex watches for women available today, rounded up into a digestible guide for your reading pleasure.   [toc-section heading="Lady-Datejust"]  It only feels right to begin with the only Rolex model family that directly references a female consumer in its naming conventions. I get the argument that some think the name “Lady-Datejust” feels a bit dated, maybe even gauche (even bringing to...

Read article
Introducing: The JB300 Poulpro - Jacques Bianchi’s Technical Dive Watch Evolves Fratello
Dec 20, 2025

Introducing: The JB300 Poulpro - Jacques Bianchi’s Technical Dive Watch Evolves

The JB300 Poulpro arrives as Jacques Bianchi Marseille’s latest take on a serious dive watch. It pairs some of the frivolous style of the earlier JB200 Poulpro with a more technical, titanium-based platform. This isn’t about flash; it’s about refining a recognized design language into something even more purposeful. In dive watches, there’s a fine […] Visit Introducing: The JB300 Poulpro - Jacques Bianchi’s Technical Dive Watch Evolves to read the full article.

Read article
Interview: Sylvain Berneron on Building a Brand, and Rethinking Modern Watchmaking Worn & Wound
Cartier Crash but Dec 19, 2025

Interview: Sylvain Berneron on Building a Brand, and Rethinking Modern Watchmaking

Every few years, a new independent hits the scene with something that hits just the right notes to get all the factions of the watch world vibrating at the same frequency. However, no recent newcomer has managed to unite the watch echo chamber the way Swiss independent Berneron has.  When Berneron unveiled their debut offering, the Mirage, in 2023, it was universally lauded as the most intriguing and refreshing new watch seen in ages. The Mirage was a legitimately unique take on upscale watchmaking, with a striking aesthetic and design narrative as unexpected as its asymmetrical shape and wildly ambitious bespoke movement. The Mirage’s styling was initially met with comparisons to the Cartier Crash, but the reality is its melted case shape was an elegant solution for housing the watch’s impressive mechanics–a case shrink-wrapped around a new caliber that was designed from scratch, free from the rules of traditional movement design.  The Mirage was a helluva of a breakout hit; it had mystique, it was technically impressive, and it was different without resorting to arbitrary design choices. The Mirage’s success would be difficult to replicate, but with the Quantième, Berneron has both side-steped the sophomore slump and cemented the reputation of its founder and Creative Director Sylvain Berneron as a true visionary and a generational talent.  The Quantième applies Berneron’s virtuosic technicality to a watch that embraces a more traditional look than the Mir...

Read article
Monochrome Turns to Habring² for the Seconde Morte SJX Watches
Dec 18, 2025

Monochrome Turns to Habring² for the Seconde Morte

The Monochrome Montre de Souscription 4 Seconde Morte (MdS4) is a limited-edition collaboration between the team at Monochrome Watches and Austrian independent Habring², built around the brand’s signature jumping seconds complication. Powered by the hand-wound A11S calibre, the watch reflects the marque’s focus on technically robust, thoughtfully refined movements and offers a straightforward value proposition. Limited to 33 individually numbered pieces and sold exclusively through a short souscription-style sales window, the MdS4 highlights both Habring²’s technical merit and Monochrome’s aesthetic sensibilities. Initial thoughts Richard and Maria Habring are outliers in the field of independent watchmaking. Among the sole guardians of the Austrian watchmaking tradition, the husband and wife team produce a range of deceptively technical (yet honestly priced) watches. This rare combination makes the brand’s watches appealing to many insiders like the team behind the Dutch website Monochrome Watches, that have just announced their latest 1930s-inspired collaboration. While the watch and its movement are the work of Habring², the team at Monochrome turned to designer and Time+Tide contributor Pietro Pilla for the Art Deco-inspired dial design. The discreet black dial features applied Roman numerals that alternate with delicate teardrop-shaped indexes, a choice that helps prevent the dial from looking too crowded. The printed railroad scale that rings the dial i...

Read article
Seiko Brings the Pink Panther to the Seiko 5 Sports Line Worn & Wound
Seiko Brings Dec 16, 2025

Seiko Brings the Pink Panther to the Seiko 5 Sports Line

Thinking back to the good old days of the video store, there were three cartoon series that my siblings and I picked more than any others: Looney Tunes, The Simpsons, and The Pink Panther. And while the former two long-running shows have had many hundreds (and even thousands) of tie-in products well into the 2020s, Pink Panther doesn’t seem to hold nearly the same level of pop culture ubiquity these days. Still, that shade of Pepto Bismol pink, visible from space, immediately brings to mind the iconic theme song and mischievous hijinks of the titular Panther and his foe, the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. Seiko has taken up the Pink Panther mantle with a new limited edition Seiko 5 Sports watch, and the bright hue isn’t the only clue to be found.  Based on the classic and ever-popular SKX series, the Pink Panther edition’s most immediately recognizable trait is its bright pink dial, and matching pink bezel numerals and markings, which also feature the cartoon’s playful typeface, a welcome deviation from more straitlaced designs. At 38mm in diameter and 44.2mm lug-to-lug, the Pink Panther is a true sports watch. The pink dial sports a date window at 3 o’clock, LumiBrite on the hands and indexes, and a cheeky trail of paw prints climbing up the left side of the face. Inside is a 4R36 automatic movement with manual winding, featuring 41 hours of power reserve and a stop second hand function. All of this is visible through an opaque pink caseback that also features th...

Read article
Orion Watches Founder Nick Harris on Growing His Brand Through Adversity Worn & Wound
Seiko modder Dec 15, 2025

Orion Watches Founder Nick Harris on Growing His Brand Through Adversity

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most of you reading this right now won’t know the name Nick Harris. Don’t worry, I’m not calling anyone out; if you weren’t a dedicated Seiko modder on the right forums at the right times, it’s not a name you’re likely to have come across. Nick, despite being an accomplished watchmaker and avid enthusiast, just isn’t as well-known as the brand he created, Orion Watches. It’s not a huge surprise. As enthusiasts, we tend to have a better memory for brands and watches than we do for people (how many of us have pulled some variation of the classic, “I can’t remember his name, but he had that great vintage Sub”), and that tendency easily extends to brands, even small ones. It’s easy to forget that many of the brands we talk about on Worn & Wound, and so many of the watchmakers that get us excited, aren’t really “brands” in the typical sense. Many of our favorite brands aren’t machines operating with marketing departments, state-of-the-art production facilities, and overflowing C-Suites. What we broadly call “brands’ are usually the result of the passionate work of one, or maybe two, dedicated creators, their brand names and logos serving more as a personal maker’s mark than as an identifier for a sprawling and impersonal corporate structure. The consequence here is that it can be easy to conflate these small one-man shops with their more established brethren. That can make it particularly diffi...

Read article
Atelier Wen Review: Artisanal Chinese Watchmaking Teddy Baldassarre
Atelier Wen Dec 11, 2025

Atelier Wen Review: Artisanal Chinese Watchmaking

Within the burgeoning small independent watch brand scene we find creative inspiration that takes many forms. Oftentimes, this is focused on a specific moment in time or place in history. With Atelier Wen, a young Hong Kong based manufacture, that inspiration is the celebration of culture and craftsmanship of a nation. The name is a combination of the French word for workshop, and the Chinese word for culture, and serves as a fitting description of not only the brand’s founders, but also the driving force behind their creative vision. Since their founding in 2018, Atelier Wen has become a showcase of Chinese culture and craftsmanship within a world of high-end horology generally dominated by European centric attitudes.  [toc-section heading="Some Brand History"] Atelier Wen was founded by Robin Tallendier and Wilfried Buiron, two Frenchmen with a shared passion for, and deep connection to Chinese culture and watchmaking. Through their time living and working in China (Robin an advisor and expert in the China Horologe Association; Wilfried a graduate of Peking University and Tsinghua University), the pair developed a deep reverence for the watchmaking scene as represented through the community of collectors and watchmakers. Upon their return to Europe, the two quickly found that their experiences did not align with the general perceptions found in the west. Together, the founders sought to take advantage of the opportunity to put a spotlight on the true nature of Chinese...

Read article
Introducing – The Tuxedo Dial Returns with the New Serica Ref. 6190 TXD Monochrome
Serica Ref 6190 TXD Since Dec 10, 2025

Introducing – The Tuxedo Dial Returns with the New Serica Ref. 6190 TXD

Since its founding in 2019, Serica has built a loyal following for its elegant take on tool watches. Designed in Paris by Jérôme Burgert and Gabriel Vachette (of Les Rhabilleurs publication), Serica’s creations blend the discipline of military design with what is best described as distinctly French refinement. The brand’s collection comprises the 5303 Diver […]

Read article
Best Solar-Powered Dive Watches For Every Budget Teddy Baldassarre
Dec 9, 2025

Best Solar-Powered Dive Watches For Every Budget

While solar-powered quartz technology has been around for decades, it’s still a relatively new innovation in the centuries-old watch world. I wouldn’t say the solar-powered revolution has fully arrived (especially as contemporary enthusiasts continue to find appeal in the craftsmanship of mechanical calibers in an increasingly digital world), but the technology has undoubtedly become more reliable and refined in recent years. The convenience and ease of being able to charge up your watch in both natural and artificial light sources, as well as the security of the long-lasting battery life, actually lend themselves well to more high-stakes and tactical situations. Riffing on that theme, I’ve scoured the watch industry for the best solar dive watches on the market. Down below, you’ll find what I believe to be the most compelling solar divers out there for your reading pleasure, offered at a wide range of price points so everyone can get in on the fun.  [toc-section heading="Citizen Eco-Drive Promaster Dive Titanium"] Case: 44mm, Material: Super Titanium, Water Resistance: 200 meters, Caliber: E168 Solar, Price: $575 It was Citizen who truly revolutionized the genre of solar-powered watches in the '90s. The brand was the very first to launch pieces that could power up with both sunlight and artificial light sources with the launch of its Eco-Drive technology, and it remains a leader in the category today. While Citizen has quite a number of solar-powered watches that...

Read article
Timex, Todd Snyder, and a Mad Men Inspired Marlin Worn & Wound
Timex Todd Snyder Dec 9, 2025

Timex, Todd Snyder, and a Mad Men Inspired Marlin

There’s something strangely fitting about a new Timex collaboration with Toddy Snyder dropping this month in the form of the new Olive Marlin seen here. The Marlin, in its current form, is frequently described as being inspired by the style of the Mad Men era. The AMC series started many menswear trends and the archives of sites like ours and many watch and menswear forums are ripe with stories about Mad Men’s watches, how to achieve the Don Draper look, and so on. Mad Men is on my mind right now though not because of the release of this new piece from Timex, but because of the quite hysterical gaffe made by someone at HBO Max, who inadvertently put up uncut and unedited versions of the show when it made its HBO Max streaming premiere on the first of the month. This was supposed to be a big moment for the debut of the new 4K scans of the show, but instead, everyone is talking about a puke hose.  I’m not the biggest Mad Men guy out there, but I like the show well enough, and I watched a few of my favorite episodes over the weekend to test the waters on a full rewatch. Maybe I’ll report back on that, at some point. For now, I can say that the style of the show (not just the clothes, but entire production design) remains just about perfect at evoking a very specific era, and the watches always played a major role in that. The Marlin would have felt right at home on this set.  For this new Todd Snyder collaboration, the dial has been given a coat of the designer’s ...

Read article
Complicated Collectors: James Ward Packard SJX Watches
Patek Philippe had just completed movement Dec 9, 2025

Complicated Collectors: James Ward Packard

On 27 April 1927 a nurse walked into a room at the Cleveland Clinic carrying a leather case. The patient was sixty-four, a section of skull removed, the ache of radiation still working behind his eyes. On the charts he appeared as James Ward Packard, co-founder of Packard Electric and Packard Motor Car Company. To the nurse he was a difficult case. To Geneva he remained the client for whom Patek Philippe had just completed movement number 198’023, an astronomical watch that had absorbed three years of calculation and bench work. James Ward Packard. Image – Lehigh University Photograph Collection Inside the case lay a carillon minute repeater on three gongs, coupled to a full perpetual calendar with moon phase, equation of time, and sunrise and sunset indications calculated for Warren, Ohio. On the reverse, a deep blue sky disk carried five hundred and twelve gold stars, turning at sidereal speed around a small Polaris. The sky above his birthplace had been compressed into a circle of lapis and gold, moving in his hands as it moved above the town where he had been born, built factories, endowed an engineering laboratory, and which he now understood lay beyond any realistic hope of return. Consolation held little appeal for him. Packard placed his trust in precision, in the ability to describe a situation so exactly that it became bearable. The watch answered a question he had circled since childhood: if the world always exceeds your grasp, can you still know, to the min...

Read article
Do Rolex Watches Tick? It's All In The Beat Teddy Baldassarre
Rolex Dec 8, 2025

Do Rolex Watches Tick? It's All In The Beat

“Do Rolex watches tick?”  This is, apparently, a frequent question and a common concern of newbie Rolex owners, but the premise of the question is actually driven by a misconception. Virtually all Rolex watches - in fact, all watches equipped, as most Rolexes are, with a mechanical movement - are  indeed ticking while they are running. If your ear is not perceiving it, that is only because the ticking is so rapid - nowadays, at least eight times per second - that the watch’s seconds hand appears to be moving in a smooth, sweeping motion. This can be quite noticeable if you have experienced only the much more visible, (and easily perceptible) one-tick-per-second movement common to the seconds hand of a quartz watch. In fact, if your Rolex watch is ticking once per second, it might be worth taking a moment to authenticate whether or not it is real or counterfeit. Allow us to explain. [toc-section heading="The Difference Between Mechanical and Quartz Movements"] A mechanical movement is the oldest type of movement in horology. It uses a coiled metal spring, called a mainspring, that releases energy as it uncoils through a series of gears to drive a weighted, oscillating wheel called a balance wheel. The balance wheel’s oscillations are linked to an escapement, which periodically releases the gear train to move the hands forward to record the passing of hours, minutes, and seconds. Originally, the mainspring needed to be wound periodically by hand, first by a...

Read article