Hodinkee
Introducing: The Petermann Bédat 1825 - Same Great Watchmaking, New Design
The young duo has created a brand new caliber and expanded their design language, which is likely to grab new customers.
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Hodinkee
The young duo has created a brand new caliber and expanded their design language, which is likely to grab new customers.
Worn & Wound
Just when you think you know an indie brand, they go ahead and make a watch that looks kind of normal. That was one of the initial thoughts running through my head when the Urwerk team showed us the new UR-10 SpaceMeter during our Geneva Watch Days meeting last month. It is, without question, one of the most confounding releases in the brand’s history. This is a brand that has singlehandedly carved out a niche for themselves with highly technical, futuristic timepieces that employ wandering and satellite hours complications in innovative and unique ways. Their watches are usually not circular, they do not have traditional hands, and they don’t even really have what we’d think of as complications in a traditional sense. But the UR-10 proves that even when a brand has defined a category, there’s still plenty of opportunity to surprise with something new. The concept of the SpaceMeter is to, unsurprisingly, measure space. That’s a pretty heady concept, but it’s rooted in classical watchmaking that has always been an influence on brand founders Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei. In the case of the UR-10, the inspiration comes directly from an important clock in Baumgartner’s life, a 19th century pendulum clock signed by Gustave Sandoz. The unusual clock belonged to Baumgartner’s father, and upon taking ownership apparently had little idea of exactly what the subdials were meant to track. After a lot of research, Baumgartner determined that the clock was desig...
Monochrome
Czapek unveils the second special series created to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the brand’s rebirth in 2015. Following the Antarctique Tourbillon introduced in April, this new release presents an exceptional interpretation of the maison’s integrated-bracelet sports watch, distinguished by a plique-à-jour enamel dial. Plique-à-jour is an intricate and delicate enamelling technique distinguished by its […]
Fratello
Today, we’ll look at tasteful updates by Blancpain to its Villeret collection. Aside from the well-known Fifty Fathoms, these are the watches most people think of when considering the brand. After all, this collection was an integral part of Blancpain’s relaunch in the ’80s. For today, three models have been reinterpreted with golden-hour hues. Let’s […] Visit Introducing: The Updated Blancpain Villeret Golden Hour Collection to read the full article.
SJX Watches
Petermann Bédat has just unveiled its third model, the Reference 1825, which arrives two years after the Reference 2941 Split-Seconds Chronograph. The brand’s simplest watch to date, the 1825 is three hands but far from basic. In fact, the 1825 illustrates the cliche that less is more. Founded by duo Gaël Petermann and Florian Bédat, the brand departs from current fashion with the 1825, which has a restrained aesthetic front and back, though the movement incorporates enough subtle flourishes to make it distinctive and distinguished. The proliferation of open-dial time-only watches with overwrought finishing makes the quiet presence of the 1825 stand out. The cal. 233 of the 1825 Initial thoughts The recent enthusiasm for independent watchmaking has tended to focus on time-only watches of a specific sort, with open dials, exposed movements, and lots of finishing techniques. Naturally, independent watchmakers and brands have delivered in response to that demand. In comparison, the 1825 is old school in style and form, almost plain in fact, but I like it precisely because of that. The 1825 is appealing on two levels. One is tangible – it is an appealing watch on the wrist and clearly executed to a high level. The other is philosophical – I applaud Petermann Bédat for not going with current fads. The 1825 isn’t imaginative or radical, it is simply a simple watch of high quality that feels like it was conceived and executed by sincere, competent watchmakers. All ele...
Deployant
Petermann Bedat release their third watch as the next chapter of the maison. This is a return to the basics with a time only model they call the 1825.
Two Broke Watch Snobs
Our hands-on guide to the best dress watches: picks across budgets with sizing tips, pros and cons, and insights from on-wrist testing.
Fratello
The Flyway Fata Morgana is the latest addition to Isotope’s collection of characterful, design-first watches. Inspired by the rare optical phenomenon in which land and sky appear to merge, it represents perhaps more of a poetic concept than a mere wristwatch. This new 36mm model introduces a mirror-polished titanium dial to an already rather exotic […] Visit Introducing: The Isotope Flyway Fata Morgana - A Mirror-Polished Optical Illusion to read the full article.
Monochrome
Now that is something paradoxical… An Urwerk watch equipped with centrally-mounted hands rotating traditionally on top of a round dial, with concentric counters underneath. That’s nothing what you’d expect to see from Urwerk, a brand known for its unconventional displays of the time with wandering hours and satellites. Look at our retrospective of the entire […]
Time+Tide
With these new "Golden Hour" updates to three key models, Blancpain's underrated Villeret line gets its time in the sun.The post Blancpain updates its Villeret line with subtle, yet well-considered tweaks appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
SJX Watches
Known for its avant-garde approach to watchmaking, Urwerk takes a surprise detour into orthodoxy with the UR-10 Spacemeter. At least at first glance, it is a round(-ish) sports watch with an integrated bracelet – and normal hour and minutes hands – as well as indicators you’ll find on no other watch. But conceptually, the UR-10 Spacemeter is typical Urwerk. The indicators on the dial are all astronomy related, bringing to mind past Urwerk models and the brand’s sci-fi style. Initial Thoughts Oddly, I find I find myself more impressed with the UR-10 aesthetically than technically. Urwerk has cultivated a military, sci-fi aesthetic that I’ve become enamoured with, especially the EMC. And, if the UR-10 is anything like its similarly sized and braceleted peers, it will wear well too. Then there are the dials, with ideal typography, which sit under a sapphire bubble and remind me of a flush-mounted ship’s compass. The complications are inspired by an unusual 19th-century regulator clock by Gustave Sandoz, and attempt to track both the Earth’s rotation and revolution. An interesting idea, but the execution is disappointing as the indications aren’t particularly mathematically accurate and based on arbitrary distances, like 10 km, rather than natural phenomenon like, say, a sidereal time watch, where one rotation of a sidereal hour hand corresponds to one rotation of the Earth. However, Urwerk likes to develop ideas over time, and the Spacemeter concept has potent...
Fratello
A retro watch is a modern watch evoking a style from a bygone era - usually, in the case of dive watches, the 1950s and ’60s. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the “Retro Age” began in the watch world, but I don’t think we’re far off by considering the introduction of the Tudor Black […] Visit Retro Dive Watches Are Suffering From An Identity Crisis: They All Look The Same! to read the full article.
SJX Watches
On episode 14 of the SJX Podcast, Brandon Moore and SJX unpack the new Louis Vuitton Monterey and discuss where fashion brands fit in the contemporary fine watchmaking landscape. Are collectors who ignore these kinds of products intellectually lazy? We also cover the latest from Lange, which just added a stone onyx dial to the Saxonia Thin – is it the perfect watch for your next soiree? Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Youtube.
Teddy Baldassarre
The independent and microbrands of the watch world are often where the most interesting things are happening, but the landscape is only getting wider and the competition stronger – which is ultimately a good thing. But, with competition only growing fiercer, there are other brands that get knocked out of the spotlight, overshadowed by the current hyped brand/watch/designs of the time. Such is the case with Islander watches. But today, we’re going to help fix that and give a little extra consideration and attention to what I would call an underdog of the independent world. Down below, I’ll be walking you through what Islander Watches are all about, focusing on a case study of a couple of models, and sharing my final conclusions about how this brand fits into the wild world of watches. Some Context Islander Watches hold an interesting position within the industry, as they are actually the house brand of Long Island Watch, and, at its core, Islander is an entirely enthusiast-driven brand. I’m sure there are plenty of those already familiar with Long Island Watch from YouTube or the digital sphere, but for those uninitiated, Long Island Watch is a New York-based watch brand founded in 2003 by Marc Frankel, a mechanical engineer who turned his passion for collecting watches into an online retailer back in 2003. Focussing on offering a really dynamic curation of affordable, hardworking, and interesting watches from nearly all genres (and often from obscure brands), Mar...
Worn & Wound
The “One Watch Collection” is one of our favorite thought experiments. Thinking through whether we could scale back, or if we started over, if we’d do things differently, helps many of us hone in on what makes the watches we love special in the first place. Today, our contributors wrestle with the idea of a one watch collection, making their choices for the watch they’d wear forever, and explaining their thought process. As always, we want to hear from you. Let us know in the comments if a one watch collection is even feasible, and what your one watch choice would be. Alec Dent – Rolex Datejust “Wimbledon” I have what you might call a theoretical fondness for the one-watch collection. I love the idea, but I also have more than one watch and can’t imagine selling most of the watches in my collection. If I could go back to the beginning of my watch collecting journey, though, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’d be a one-watch guy and that that watch would be a Rolex Datejust. It’s water resistant to 100m, it’s durable, it can be dressed up or dressed down, and it epitomizes classic design. What more could you need from a watch? I’m particularly partial to the 36mm two-tone “Wimbledon” dial with a fluted bezel and a jubilee bracelet, but the Datejust has been around for so long - 80 years this year! - there are countless variations from which to choose. (If I wasn’t here advocating for the Datejust as a one-watch collection, I might adva...
SJX Watches
A hit when it was launched a dozen years ago – time does fly – the Speedmaster Dark Side of the Moon was the first-ever Speedmaster in ceramic. Now Omega has refined and reworked the concept – the case is now almost 1 mm thinner – while retaining the all-ceramic construction and distinctive aesthetic. The new Speedmaster Dark Side of the Moon (DSOTM) makes its debut in four variants. The first two stick closely to the original, right down to the same automatic cal. 9900 movement, but in a slimmer format. More notable is the manual-wind version containing the cal. 9908, the first DSOTM offering with this movement, making it even thinner. And it has no date to boot. Rounding out the quartet is the Speedmaster Grey Side of the Moon (GSOTM) that is also manual-wind but powered by the historically-based, Moonwatch-famous cal. 3861. This adopts the lunar-textured surface, front and back, first seen on the Apollo 8 edition. The first manual-wind DSOTM that has a black-and-red livery Initial thoughts Contemporary collectors are spoiled for choice when it comes to the Speedmaster, which is available in seemingly endless configurations. While that’s arguably a criticism, it demonstrates Omega’s industrial prowess, which enables the brand to deliver large volumes of watches that are objectively high quality and equipped with some of the industry’s best chronograph movements, without keeping customers waiting. Regardless of the shade of grey or black, the watches are ins...
Monochrome
Angelus and Massena LAB return with a second collaboration that once again leans hard into classic mid-century chronograph codes. After the first collaborative project, the 2023 Chronographe Médical, which reintroduced the brand’s vintage tool-watch spirit and the La Fabrique collection, and the recent Chronographe Télémètre established a small-case, hand-wound monopusher as a core design, the […]
Monochrome
Bremont has a solid portfolio of rugged tool watches designed for airborne, seaborne and land exploration. Recently restructured under Davide Cerrato, Bremont’s 2024 Terrra Nova collection was the CEO’s trial by fire. With its cushion-shaped cases, vintage details, and excellent legibility, the Terra Nova collection is designed to capture the elemental spirit of yesteryear’s military […]
Monochrome
Omega turns its head once again to the Dark Side… of the Moon, of course. A now-classic member of the Speedmaster collection, the Dark Side of the Moon lineup, also known as the DSOTM, has been around for over 10 years now, always with a cool, monochromatic take on the brand’s emblematic space chronograph, made […]
Fratello
In 2013, there were two very significant releases in Omega’s catalog. One was the Speedmaster Professional “Racing,” which Fratello quickly dubbed “Tintin” due to its story with the Belgian reporter and his adventures on the Moon. The other was the Speedmaster Dark Side of the Moon. It was a revolutionary watch at the time, as […] Visit Video: Hands-On With The New Omega Speedmaster Dark Side Of The Moon Watches to read the full article.
Fratello
Welcome to another episode of Fratello On Air. This week, we try our hand at predicting the fortunes of four key watch brands. These makers all have great pieces in their lineups, yet we wonder if they have more in store to become absolute powerhouses. Or perhaps some of these companies will go in the […] Visit Fratello On Air: Predicting The Fortunes Of Four Brands In Five Years to read the full article.
Time+Tide
Hajime Asaoka treats himself to a 60th birthday present with the new Grand Jubilee Calendar in elegant salmon.The post Kurono’s triple calendar is back, but this time dressier than before appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Fratello
Citizen recently organized a traveling exhibition showcasing its 55-year history with titanium. I was invited to the Paris edition, so I made my way to the French capital with my camera and notepad. In case you were unaware, Citizen was the first brand to make a wristwatch out of this lightweight metal. While titanium may […] Visit Celebrating 55 Years Of Titanium Watches With Citizen to read the full article.
Worn & Wound
Most enthusiast focused brands would find themselves extremely fortunate to have a single watch or collection that achieves “icon” status with the finicky hobbyist crowd. It’s not secret that watch enthusiasts are a picky and demanding bunch, and the watches that rise to the top and achieve a level of support by consensus are genuinely pretty special. Oris, I think, has at least two watches that fall easily into this category. There’s the Divers Sixty-Five (and the newer Divers Date) that have become forum favorites and are frequently spoken of when it comes time to recommend a solid sports watch to a budding collector. And then there’s the Big Crown Pointer Date. For my money, this is the iconic Oris. While dive watches, in general, might be more popular, the pointer date is special because it fills a very specific, old-fashioned niche, and there are just fewer brands making anything similar that’s still approachable for a casual or value oriented consumer. It has, of course, been a platform for many limited and special editions over the years, and the new version seen here made in collaboration with frequent partner Cervo Volante really stands out. Cervo Volante is a strap and leather goods maker that Oris has partnered with for a number of years now. The brand specializes in sustainably sourced deer leather, and the straps they have crafted for the Oris watches they’ve worked on are truly exceptional. Cervo Volante’s mission also folds in nicely with O...
Monochrome
Japan is known for being one of the most mature and fascinating markets for new and vintage watches, home to serious collectors, as well as long-established manufacturers. In recent years, we’ve also seen the rise of a proper independent scene, ranging from accessible to ultra high-end, with Hajime Asaoka being on both ends of the […]
Fratello
When the new Jack Mason Pursuit Pro models landed on my desk, I wondered what had just arrived in the Fratello offices. Were they field watches or dive watches? We are no strangers to timepieces that can fill both roles well. That’s why Jack Mason calls the Pursuit Pro a series of rugged trail watches. […] Visit Jack Mason Steps Up Its Game With The New Pursuit Pro Tool Watches to read the full article.
Monochrome
Once the domain of high-end brands, the integrated sports watch genre is on fire and the market is flooded with thousands of models, ranging from downright affordable ones, such as Tissot’s PRX, all the way up to AP’s Royal Oak, and everything in between. A somewhat unexpected move, the latest player to take the plunge […]
Time+Tide
A new collaboration launched to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Windup Watch Fair NYC with a Brooklyn twist. The post Christopher Ward and Worn & Wound take over Brooklyn with this new collaboration appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Quill & Pad
At the heart of Dann Phimphrachanh's Seconde Vive is the jumping seconds mechanism. Dann’s goal was not simply to achieve a jumping seconds hand, but to create one that felt regular, smooth, and, as he puts it, “alive.”
SJX Watches
Longines continues to mine its archive to good effect with the Ultra-Chron Classic, a faithful reissue of the brand’s pioneering high-frequency wristwatch first launched in 1967. The Ultra-Chron Classic is more than just a remake of a vintage watch. While it has a clean, period-correct vintage aesthetic, the mechanics are entirely modern, namely a high-beat, 5 Hz automatic movement that is both COSC chronometer and TIMELAB certified. Initial thoughts Longines does well at bringing back beloved designs from the past, but built to modern standards. The Ultra-Chron Classic is the latest in a long line of historical reissues that began nearly two decades ago with the bestselling Legend Diver. The Ultra-Chron Classic is impressively faithful to the original in style, but because of that, not especially exciting in terms of design, retaining the all-business look that was common among high-performance gentlemen’s wristwatches of the era; the same criticism could be leveled at the Jaeger-LeCoultre Geophysic E168 or IWC Ingenieur ref. 666. In other words, the dial, hands, and indices are mostly true to the source material, but this pared-back look may have a harder time standing out in today’s market than it once did. Dressy? Classic? Or plain? Looks aside, the Ultra-Chron Classic is modern Longines at its best: a solid build, a brand-exclusive movement, proper sizing, and sensible pricing. The movement in particular stands out for being notable high-spec with its 36,000 bea...
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