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Deployant
The IWC 5251 was a dream watch of mine when I was early in my watch collecting “career”…it was a grail watch, as even then, it was quite rare to find a piece readily available. Built on a pocket watch movement, it is a magnificent watch…large, flat case, with a beautiful movement. This particular exampleRead More
Revolution
Time is asymmetrical (at least, to us poor mortals who must perforce follow its apparently irreversible arrow) so why shouldn’t a watch be asymmetrical too? In 1972, Vacheron Constantin introduced a watch with a lozenge shaped, asymmetrical case that combined old-school codes of slimness and simplicity with a jazzy, modern silhouette that became a major […]
Deployant
A quick place marker for next week’s post. Possibly the most beautifully made mechanical ladies watch in production…the Lange Arkade. This specimen is in yellow gold case, champagne dial. Personal timepiece of my wife’s. Photographed simply in a restaurant, while we were having lunch, perched on a plate. One of the original watches introduced byRead More
Revolution
It has the distinct honour of having one of the first immediately recognisable watch case shapes out there- I am talking about the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak of course; but what few people know (and could learn more) about this horological icon is that the Royal Oak pulled Audemars Piguet from the brink of bankruptcy. […]
Deployant
The De Bethune DB28…amazingly beautiful watch. The design is quite unique…the case is in the design language established by De Bethune. The watch shown is rose gold. The lugs, which are mobile and able to pivot to follow the shape of the wrists and its movements is a contrasting hue of flame treated blued titanium.Read More
Deployant
Vianney Halter is an exceptional watchmaker. Supremely creative in his approach. His first watch to be unveilled to the world is a result of a collaboration with Jeff Barnes. The legend goes that Jeff and Vianney were having a drink, when the latter challenged the former, who is an industrial designer, to design a watchRead More
Deployant
Watchscape of the Patek Philippe Ref. 5101 Tourbillon in a rectangular case with form movement in platinum. A gem of a rare watch.
Worn & Wound
I love the experience of a truly unique watch. A watch that, despite doing what the rest of them do, for all intents and purposes, is still unlike anything you’ve strapped to your wrist. This goes beyond the dial to the case, bracelet, time-telling, movement, etc. It doesn’t have to encompass all of those things, but when it does, it reminds you that there is still creativity in the watch world. The Chronoswiss Pulse GMT is one such watch. It’s almost hard to describe the Pulse GMT. It’s something between an integrated-bracelet sports watch and a conceptual neo-futurist travel thingamajiggy. Frankly, had I been told it was a prop from *Gattaca* or another stylized sci-fi film, I might have believed it. Its lines are fluid and complex, except when they aren’t, touching on biomorphic forms while also speaking to the traditional inspirations the brand was founded on. It’s not an easy watch to digest at a glance, presenting conflicting forms, and yet it works. Well, for me it does, but I like weird watches. And regulators. And weird regulators. Starting with the case and bracelet, though integrated, there is a merging of two concepts. Ignoring the bracelet entirely, the central case measures 41.4mm x ~48mm x 13.6mm to the top of the slightly domed sapphire crystal and draws from the brand’s historical DNA, but mutates it substantially. The coined-edge bezel and caseback become notched instead. Less ornate but still textural, it gives more diver than pocket watch....
SJX Watches
Bulgari had a number of surprises in store for Geneva Watch Days, which helped the brand stand out from a somewhat quiet field. At the top of the list was the Octo Finissimo Dual Time x Vianney Halter, which shoehorns the steampunk aesthetic developed by Jeff Barnes and Vianney Halter into Bulgari’s minimalist Octo Finissimo platform. The confluence of designs mostly succeeds, whether in sandblasted titanium or 18k rose gold. The latter recalls Vianney Halter’s beloved Antiqua, but the flat and wide Octo case gives this collaboration a distinct personality. Initial thoughts Bulgari is no stranger to collaborations, and neither is Vianney Halter, who is surely one of the most prolific collaborators in the field of independent watchmaking. At Geneva Watch Days alone, three different brands exhibited watches with his name attached to them. Notably, the French watchmaker has collaborated with Massena Lab, Louis Erard, and even Behrens, the upstart from Shenzen. For Bulgari’s part, the brand’s product director Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani has developed the Octo Finissimo into a platform for experimentation, lending its sleek footprint to renowned architects, painters, and even tattoo artists, often to good effect. The versatility of the Octo Finissimo is due in large part to its singular character — its wide, aggressively tapering bracelet and ultra-slim construction make it recognisable with or without the Bulgari logo or other decorative treatments. The collaborat...
Hodinkee
Last year I took a trip to Swatch's Sistem51 factory, and many people seemed to enjoy getting a glimpse of the other side of watchmaking that we typically don't glamorize. Industrialization, in a way very opposite from classic watchmaking, is a different kind of technical art entirely. It's diametrically opposed to the philosophies of construction and finishing that you would expect from a classic watchmaker or brand, but as a result, that visit was one of the most interesting manufacturing sites that I've ever seen. I had no idea that I'd be back so soon, but then again, I certainly would have no idea that a collaboration between Swatch and Audemars Piguet would be around the corner. So a little more than a year later, I found myself back in Biel, Switzerland, right outside of Swatch headquarters, making my way back to the Swatch Museum (still some of the most fun you can spend in a watch museum), the Swatch Drive-Through shop right outside of Swatch headquarters, and finally making the drive back out into the Swiss countryside to go see some Swatch factory sites. Of course, this time, it was in the hopes of seeing how things might have changed with the addition of the Royal Pop as a product on the factory lines. This trip wasn't all just déjà vu, however. In my visit last year to the ETA Sistem51 site in Boncourt, it just so happened that the ETA site in Grenchen, responsible for the production of Swatch's Bioceramic composite, was under renovation. They were in the mi...
Hodinkee
What We Know On the quieter side of Bulgari's releases for Geneva Watch Days this year, we have the titanium expression of the brand's expanding range of material-based models that follow elements of the design language of the Diagono. Following the models in aluminum and last year's release of the Bronzo GMT and Chronograph, we now have the Bulgari Titanio, which offers both a dual-time model and an automatic chronograph. The pair follows the established Bulgari format closely, modifying the recipe only for the use of grade 5 in this case, the bracelet articulation links, and the buckle. The Titanio Chronograph is 41mm wide with a sandblasted and satin-finished case that is 12.35mm thick. The Titanio GMT follows the same format, but with a 40mm case that is 9.7mm thick. Water resistance is 100 meters for both, and both come with a black rubber strap with titanium links and buckle. A titanium bracelet is an available option, but no pricing details are offered. The bezel, crown, and pushers are rendered in a black DLC finish, and both models feature a matte black dial with grey galvanic treatments on the hands. The Titanio Chronograph is powered by the Bulgari B381 automatic, which is based on the Sellita SW300 with a Dubois-Dépraz module; it is a 4 Hz movement with a date at 4:30, a 50-hour power reserve, and a maximum chronograph measure of 12 hours. For the Titanio GMT, Bulgari employs the B192 automatic, which is based on the Sellita SW-330 and offers "caller-sty...
SJX Watches
More than a decade after unveiling its first in-house minute repeater, Piaget has revived the once-record-setting calibre in a familiar-looking guise. The new Polo Minute Repeater pairs the ultra-thin, micro-rotor cal. 1209P with the modern Polo case and a striking, partially open-worked guilloche dial. Initial thoughts The Polo Minute Repeater is a new watch, but it bears a striking resemblance to the Emperador Coussin of 2013. This isn’t that surprising, since the contemporary Polo — refreshed in 2016 — borrows significantly from the Emperador’s case design. But in this case the similarity is more than skin deep, since the Polo Minute Repeater shares the same movement as its predecessor: the cal. 1209P. This ultra-thin calibre was once the world’s thinnest minute repeater — a title it maintained for three years before the launch of the Bulgari BVL 362, based on a 1980s Gerald Genta calibre. The Polo is big but flat, measuring 48 mm wide but just 9.3 mm thick. The size is partly due to the movement construction, which spreads out the major component groups into two slim planes with the escapement, micro-rotor, and twin minute repeater hammers on on one level, and the racks and centripetal governor on top. This 2010s-era sizing is arguably out of step with current fads where small watches are all the rage, but the watch is elegant and evokes 1970s “jumbo” watches with its wide-but-flat profile. In any case, wearability is probably a moot point considering t...
Worn & Wound
What happens when a watch goes viral? Well, besides the obvious – everyone sees them, everyone buys them, second hand prices go crazy – you know the deal. That’s exactly what happened with the DWC Terra – a unique take on the field watch by the small Indian brand, Delhi Watch Co. Military-inspired field watches out there have their charm, but they all tend to blend in. For good reason too – they’re built to a military specification that calls out for case size, dial markings, and beyond — generally sticking to a formula that makes sense when it needs to be as standard as a uniform. That’s where the DWC Terra takes a huge turn. It’s a field watch, but looks more like something that would be at home on the wrist of one of the deep space truckers in Alien than it does something that’d be worn down here on Earth. They stick to the classic field watch simplicity, but the package represents something new that we’ve never seen before in the watch world. Let’s take a closer look at this interesting, affordable, and unique take on the field watch. In case you missed it, this watch has a pretty fair amount of hype going around it. Sold out in a flash with Ticketmaster-style online queues that were thousands long, the Terra made a pretty big impact when it hit the market. DWC is short for Delhi Watch Company — a small brand based out of Delhi, India that focuses on watches with unique designs at a reasonable price point. The Terra hits both of those with eas...
Monochrome
Small changes can go a long way, but when a watch goes from bracelet-only (sort of) to a leather strap, it can go a very long way. Especially when said watch is a true pioneer in the field, with historical relevance and iconic design importance. Sounds like a bold claim, but when it comes to the […]
Fratello
Why use a traditional, coiled balance spring when you can use a 14-micron-wide and 120-micron-“thick” silicon blade instead? With the latter, Girard-Perregaux set out to overcome the inherent challenge of fluctuating power delivery in mechanical watches. The goal for the 235-year-old Swiss watchmaker from La Chaux-de-Fonds was to achieve consistently superior precision. The quest involves […] Visit Hands-On With The Girard-Perregaux Neo Constant Escapement — Could We Catch The Purple “Butterfly” Inside? to read the full article.
SJX Watches
A new day is dawning for Credor, which made its Watches & Wonders debut with the Locomotive “Dawn Blue” ref. GCCR995. Designed by Gerald Genta, the Locomotive was once the brand’s flagship sports model in the same vein as its more famous Swiss siblings, but with a quirky integrated-unintegrated bracelet. The obvious quality of the titanium case and bracelet make up for a weak spec sheet, but leave room for the Locomotive to grow alongside the newly international Credor marque. Initial thoughts The Locomotive is a great example of a watch that is more than the sum of its parts. In fact, it’s (almost) inexplicably nice for a watch with such a strange design, a mundane movement, and a micro-adjust-less pin-and-collar bracelet. While it’s cliché to say a watch looks better in person than photographs — and underestimates what a good photographer can do — I would say the Locomotive feels much better in person, like a watch of its price point should. The defining update for this edition of the Locomotive is its embossed dial, which features a repeating hexagon motif. The grooves that fill each cell are oriented at different angles, giving the dial a shimmering personality that changes with shifting light. At some angles, the dial is a uniform blue, while other angles produce an almost chequerboard-like effect. This backdrop is coated with layers of clear lacquer, enabling the Credor wordmark and (superfluous) “Automatic” text to float neatly above the three-d...
Hodinkee
This story is a special presentation from Hodinkee Japan, written and illustrated by Masaharu Wada, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief for Hodinkee Japan. For a young brand to revisit roughly 98 percent of the movement components in a GPHG-winning watch after receiving the award might ordinarily sound like cause for concern. But when I visited Fam al Hut's workshop in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, China, I came away feeling almost the opposite. More than anything else, that fact seemed to capture exactly where the brand stands today. A large industrial elevator takes you to the second floor, where the doors open onto a long central corridor. To the right, behind glass walls, designers and engineers gather around technical drawings. To the left is a production floor lined with five CNC machines and other machine tools. Farther inside are a prototyping room, a finishing department, a clean room for movement assembly, a quality-control room, a stockroom, and even a dedicated room housing a femtosecond laser machine. Not everything is made here. Cases and sapphire crystals, among other components, still come from outside suppliers. What Fam al Hut has built, however, is an environment in which it can control the design, prototyping, machining, assembly, testing, and continued development of its movements. For such a young independent brand, the scale of the operation was far beyond what I had expected. Fam al Hut was founded in 2024. The following year, its debut watch, the MARK 1 Möb...
Hodinkee
What We Know Fears just announced the final chapter of its Brunswick Jump Hour collection, and this appropriately named Brunswick 40.5 Jump Hour 'Ultimus' might just be the collection's most interesting execution yet. Designed in collaboration with British watch content creator Andrew Morgan, the Ultimus takes the modern design cues from the Brunswick Jump Hour all the way to eleven, with a stark black-and-white sensibility in a very sleek "Phantom White" dial execution. The focal point is the new jump hour dial, and yes, it's very lumed. Rather than in typical Brunswick Jump Hour executions, which hide all inactive numerals, this dial execution uses sapphire to reveal the oversized hour disc beneath and leans into it as part of the design. A black outer ring holds minimal branding, and within are two luminous ceramic discs—the lower disc is for the rotating (and jumping) hours, and the other disc floats above, housing the printed minute track and the oversized black minute hand. That center lumed ceramic disc above is also connected to a frosted outer ring, which holds the printed minute numerals and offers a subtle peek at the inactive hour numerals on the rest of the dial. At twelve o'clock is a magnifier, which replaces the typical framed window we've seen on the other Brunswick Jump Hours to highlight the current hour and its numeral(s) in full. The steel case is unchanged in this edition, with a diameter of 40.5mm, a thickness of 12.8mm, and a lug-to-lug of 47mm. I...
SJX Watches
Twenty twenty-six has been a milestone year for Rolex, which is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its signature Oyster case with several commemorative models. While not as innovative as the enamel-dialled Daytona or as surprising as the revised Yacht-Master II, the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date 40 dresses the brand’s flagship time-only watch in a new proprietary gold alloy dubbed “Jubilee” gold and an aventurine stone dial. Initial thoughts Stone dials are everywhere, but as usual Rolex has found a way to stand out by using an unusual mineral. Most brands today source the same few varieties of stone — especially malachite and tiger’s eye — from the same few suppliers, resulting in stone-dialled watches that tend to resemble one another. But with its unusual aventurine dial and muted Jubilee gold case and bracelet, there’s no mistaking the Day-Date 40 for anything else. And this is also actually aventurine stone, rather than the more commonly used and less expensive aventurine glass. The exotic dial and proprietary alloy give the new Day-Date 40 a look that is both distinctive yet coherent with the rest of the collection. Many key Rolex models are perpetually out of stock, underscoring the brand’s commitment to value. While it might seem disingenuous to describe a US$65,700 time-only watch as a good value, the Day-Date 40 in Jubilee gold makes a case for itself. In a perfect world with on-demand availability, this would be a strong value proposition. The A. L...
Fratello
Making a dive watch stand out today is genuinely tough. The archetype has been reinterpreted so many times that most releases blur together. The Aera D-1 Diver, however, managed to catch my attention with its less-is-more design philosophy. This modern diver uses fairly minimalist visual cues and combines them with a beautifully sculpted case. Add […] Visit A Promising First Encounter With The Updated Aera D-1 Diver to read the full article.
Monochrome
Following two difficult consecutive years, with sales down 12% in 2024 and 7% in 2025, the Swatch Group, the Swiss watchmaking giant owner of brands such as Omega, Breguet, Longines, and Tissot, is now back to growth. Indeed, as indicated by its half-year 2026 report, Swatch Group recorded “a strong increase in sales, up +8.5% […]
Hodinkee
What We Know Breitling's Top Time has long been a unique outlier in the Swiss brand's line-up. A chronograph model with a square (ish) cushion case launched in 1964, it aimed to attract a new crop of younger consumers with its hipster design. The Top Time soon made it onto the wrist of no less an icon than James Bond in the 1965 film adaptation of Ian Fleming's Thunderball, which saw Sean Connery's 007 sport the watch while driving an elegant and refined British sports car, the Aston Martin DB5. The rest, as they say, is history. The U.K.-built Aston became synonymous with the U.K. secret agent. The Top Time? Not so much. While it thrived as a model line for Breitling, Bond moved on to a series of other watch brands in subsequent installments of the film series, from Rolex to Seiko, and these days, Omega, via a longstanding product placement deal. Now Breitling, following the successful launch last year of the limited edition Top Time B01 'Racing' Series in 38mm, and the deal this year to hook up with Aston Martin as a sponsor of its F1 team and other motoring endeavors, is giving us its tribute to the DB5 in three limited edition models that aim to capture the refined elegance and power of the grand touring car on the wrist. The new Top Time Chronograph B01 Tribute To Aston Martin DB5 case measures 41 millimeters by 47.9 millimeters and13.8 millimeters thick. The dial of each limited-edition model features a wood inlay rehaut, meant to evoke the wooden steering w...
Fratello
The breakaway is five minutes ahead of the peloton. It’s a strong group, and you’d better do your best to catch the four Bravur Team Heritage watches that are in the lead. They look strong and stylish in their historical team kit colors of St. Raphaël, Peugeot, Renault, and Mercier. Forget about the ultra-aero Lycra […] Visit Catch The Four Bravur Team Heritage Watches In The Breakaway to read the full article.
Time+Tide
Just when we thought the MoonSwatch hype had been well and truly usurped by the recent AP x Swatch collaboration, Swiss giants Omega and Swatch went and broke the internet again last week, announcing their latest collaboration piece: the MoonSwatch Mission to the Moon 1969. Limited to just 1,969 pieces, the bioceramic special edition receives … Continued
Hodinkee
What We Know It's kind of funny saying this, but it's been a bit of time since we've seen a new Moonswatch. Given the news cycle around this year's Swatch x Audemars Piguet launch, it makes a lot of sense that Swatch has held more Moonswatch releases in its back pocket, ready for when the time is right to get people talking again about its most popular high/low collab. Today's new Mission To The Moon 1969 Moonswatch is the most limited of the Moonswatches, with only 1,969 pieces made in total. It's certainly a special execution, with an homage to Apollo 11's Moon landing in—you guessed it—1969. But unlike an actual Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch, where the story is a huge part of the appeal to the collector, I have a feeling that this Moonswatch's appeal lies in its use of Omega's 18K Moonshine Gold. It's certainly not the first time Swatch has used Omega's gold alloy in Moonswatches, but this one has a lot of that gold. With the dial, hands, pushers, and crown all in Moonshine Gold, there are eleven grams total in each of these watches. Interestingly, Swatch is saying that the gold used for this edition is melted down from spare Omega parts from that era, which then ties the connection with Omega much closer together. This edition pairs a matte black Bioceramic case with all those bits of gold and black accents to complete the look. The Moonshine Gold dial is given a vertically brushed finish. No lume to be found on these hands, as the gold beveled applied indices are fi...
Time+Tide
Celebrating the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the MoonSwatch Mission to the Moon 1969 is limited to just 1,969 individually numbered pieces.
Fratello
Swatch did it again! A new Swatch x Omega MoonSwatch was launched at the same time (09:32 AM EDT / 15:32 CEST) as the Saturn V rocket from the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Swatch has a good feel for historical relevance and released yet another cool MoonSwatch variation. Mission To The Moon 1969 The […] Visit We Have A Lift Off! Meet The New Swatch MoonSwatch Mission To The Moon 1969 to read the full article.
Fratello
It has been almost a year since my last article, so no pressure at all! “It has to be an epic comeback,” I told myself as one month flew into another. There were many watch candidates with unusual stories, but getting back to writing became harder and harder each week. As it usually goes, that […] Visit Retrospective: My One-Of-One Pragotron × UDC Porsche 911 SC Coffee Timer to read the full article.
Fratello
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the Hermès H08 is one of the best summer watches available under €10k. Had I waited a week, this new titanium Cape Cod might have challenged for that spot. The Cape Cod has been part of the Hermès lineup since 1991 and celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. […] Visit The Hermès Cape Cod Gets A Masculine Makeover In Titanium For The First Time to read the full article.
Deployant
Rado extends their Captain Cook collection with a new dial design - which looks like shimmering gold in a 39mm steel case.
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