Fratello
On the last Tuesday of every month, together with the Swedish REM company, we introduce a new strap for the Omega Speedmaster. As July 2024 marks the 55th anniversary of the Moon landing, we introduce the Apollo 11 strap to you. It’s also in time to have it on your wrist on July 20th, which […] Visit The June 2024 Fratello × REM Strap - Apollo 11 to read the full article.
Monochrome
While the Aquis, which has been recently revised, represents the modern side of dive watches at Oris, the Divers Sixty-Five collection is, as you might have guessed by the name, its vintage-inspired counterpart. An instrumental model for the brand’s recent history, the ’65 has been presented in dozens of editions, with manufacture movement, a chronograph, […]
Hodinkee
Richard Mille's most complicated automatic watch gets a material makeover.
On episode 83 of A Week in Watches, we take a look at three new relatively affordable releases. First is a new powerhouse of a chronograph from Farer with unique functionality. Next is a new addition to Seiko’s Craftsmanship line, featuring a dial of beautiful Arita porcelain. Last, the Omega x Swatch MoonSwatch returns again with some vibrant colors. This week’s episode is brought to you by Windup Watch Fair Chicago, which is preparing to kick off on July 12th. Eindup Chicago is heading into its third year and will feature over 40 brands, including Christopher Ward, Citizen, Fortis, G-SHOCK, Oris, and many more. Located at Venue West in West Town, it’s sure to be another exciting year. Learn more at Windupwatchfair.com The post A Week in Watches Ep. 83 – Oh No, More MoonSwatches! appeared first on Worn & Wound.
Fratello
It’s always exciting to discover a new watch brand, even more so when it was founded in your hometown. As we’re practically neighbors, I sat down for lunch with Vincent Bakker, one of the three founders of Calgari, to learn more about this Amsterdam-based brand and its watches. The adventure started by selling off-the-shelf watches, […] Visit Hands-On With The Calgari Dimora Panda And Pierre Morlet - Two Affordable Meca-Quartz Chronographs to read the full article.
Worn & Wound
eBay Finds is back! This bi-monthly installment will feature a selection of watches currently listed on eBay that have caught the eye of editor Christoph McNeil (@vintagediver). If you come across any hidden gems on the ‘Bay drop us a note at info@wornandwound.com for potential inclusion! A special note this week: this is the 100th edition of eBay Finds! Congratulations to Christoph on hitting the century mark, and thanks to all of you for following along with us as we scour eBay for the coolest vintage watches. Vintage Bulova This vintage Bulova is more than meets the eye! The smaller 31mm steel case looks unpolished, and the fancy curved lugs and scalloped bezel look fantastic and ooze style. The white dial has a deep radial groove pattern that is really nice, plus the small applied steel arrow markers match the dagger hands. But the real gem is the hi-grade Bulova 10BPAC 23 jewel automatic movement. It is adjusted for heat, cold and isochronism in three positions. This is something you would see in a Chronometre grade movement. And even though these were not submitted for that certification, they were nevertheless highly adjusted, superb movements. Great looking piece with a beautiful movement! View auction here Vintage Rado Silver Stag Here’s a beauty with loads of personality. This vintage Rado Silver Stag not only has a killer name, it has killer style as well. The square case (and integrated bracelet) has a nice brushed finish, with clipped corners and a b...
Time+Tide
Jamie puts the pedal to the metal with Roger Dubuis' latest chronograph, a collaboration with high-end car marque Lamborghini.The post Timing Lamborghini hot laps with the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Spider Revuelto Flyback Chronograph appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Monochrome
The Frederique Constant Highlife collection launched in 1999 with an interchangeable, integrated strap/bracelet at an affordable price, making the desirable “luxury Swiss sports watch” accessible to many. The collection ultimately went dormant but was relaunched in 2020 to great fanfare with musician, producer and brand ambassador The Avener. In 2022, the brand introduced the Highlife […]
Worn & Wound
Writing about watches is, often, an exercise in confirming and combatting preconceived ideas. Snap judgments are easy to form without thinking them through, and early opinions can be hard to shake, so the biggest challenges for anyone in this industry are parsing one’s own opinions, and learning how to look past them to evaluate the watches that come across our desks fairly. Most watches only require confronting this challenge in a cursory sense, but the best watches force you to face it head-on. Like many watches in the latter category, the new Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Sport Chronograph required me to do some serious thinking. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to sit down with Guido Terreni, the CEO of Parmigiani Fleurier, to talk about the brand, their watches, and why I can’t get Parmigiani Fleurier off my mind. Guido Terreni, Parmigiani Fleurier CEO Parmigiani Fleurier has spent much of the last few years absolutely knocking the proverbial ball out of the park. Since Terreni’s hiring in 2021, the brand’s been on a heater, releasing hit after hit, and building a new identity almost from scratch, rebuilding and simplifying the collection to create a new identity for the nearly 30-year-old brand. “When I joined the company, I understood that the brand needed direction and style, and what was in the pipeline was not building the brand as I thought it should. So I blocked everything and we started working from scratch on a white piece of paper - not perfectl...
Worn & Wound
There is almost no end to watches inspired by motorsport, but very few watches take that inspiration and do anything truly unique with it. Just yesterday, we brought you news of a new TAG Heuer Carrera that, in my opinion, is something of a by-the-numbers collaboration between an automaker and a luxury watch brand. It has design notes that convey a watch that’s sporty and modern, the “Porsche” wordmark prominently featured on the case itself, and it’s a Carrera, a collection that is naturally imbued with racing history. I’ve written about a lot of watches that say “Porsche” on them in one way or another, but it’s honestly difficult to tell them apart after a while. Singer Reimagined takes an entirely different approach. The brand itself is part of the Singer Group, which rose to prominence with their bespoke restorations of vintage Porsche 911s. What Singer brings to the table is a very unique and highly specialized perspective. You might love it or hate it, but they don’t suffer from the same problems that inevitably plague large luxury watch brands, namely casting an impossibly wide net, resulting in products that, even when ostensibly “niche,” have a certain generic quality to them. Being intrinsically connected to the car world, it’s no surprise that Singer only makes chronographs. Expanding on the very idea of the chronograph in an adventurous way is part of what makes Singer Reimagined exciting. Their chronographs use unconventional movement...
Quill & Pad
Independent Chinese watchmaker Qin Gan has over thirty years of experience in antique watch restorations and has crafted numerous prototype watches with complex features such as flyback, tourbillon, automaton, and repeater mechanisms. He now launches his second model under his own brand, the sublime Pastorale II.
Time+Tide
The Australian market rarely gets limited editions, so this Sydney Harbour blue Carrera Tourbillon is something special.The post Australia’s love of TAG Heuer gets recognised with a limited edition Carrera Tourbillon (live pics) appeared first on Time+Tide Watches.
Monochrome
Changes to the appearance are often a more frequent feature of the TAG Heuer Monaco series than groundbreaking innovation in its mechanics. And over the years the brand almost always successfully implemented the use of new materials and updated designs, with the recent 2023 introduction of open-worked dials to the collection preceding the launch of […]
Hodinkee
Plus, a cutting-edge and impressively thin offering from Bulgari along with a lovely and classic Carrera from Tag Heuer.
Worn & Wound
So far 2024 is a year where brands have been belting out bombastic bangers of watches one after another. So, when a different take on a beloved complication is dropped, we naturally crane our necks to peek at what’s new. The first Swiss chronograph in New Zealand based Beaufort’s lineup highlights the old school idea of a doctor/medic’s watch with a pulsometer as the primary complication. It takes this complication and sets it inside a case and dial that are elegant, yet industrial, but some of the changes made to the chronograph functionality caused me to ask some questions. The Beaufort Pulsatimer, upon quick inspection, might look like your average chrono, but the longer you linger over its construction, the more you’ll start to notice its unique styling. The case is almost totally brushed, with the exception of thinly polished chamfered edges and a polished inner bezel ring. The polished ring steps up from a brushed base bezel ring like the watch is laying its own foundation. And rising once more from the step bezel is a significantly raised box sapphire crystal. All this architecture pulls your eye into a dial that dramatically drops from the crystal with the sloped pulsometer chapter ring. Then we find a beautiful, vertically brushed copper-colored dial that Beaufort calls “Salmon.” They also have an all black, DLC coated version, a reverse panda black and silver dial, and an all silver dial version of the Pulsatimer. The architectural nuances of the ca...
Fratello
It has not escaped your attention that the retail price for a new Omega Speedmaster Professional has recently increased. Omega drastically changed many things, not only under the hood (caliber 3861) but also with different exterior parts than before. A new case, dial, hands, and bracelet were been designed for the Moonwatch, making it aesthetically […] Visit Five Speedy Alternatives To The Current Omega Speedmaster Professional to read the full article.
Deployant
De Bethune releases 2 new iterations of the DB Eight chronograph: in white gold case and royal blue dial, and in a yellow case with a chocolate dial.
Worn & Wound
TAG Heuer has unveiled their latest Carrera, another collaboration with Porsche, officially dubbed the Carrera Chronograph x Porsche 963. As watch enthusiasts know, there’s a range of how “Porschey” these collaborations get. Sometimes they simply have the German automaker’s badge slapped onto the watch somewhere, and sometimes the connection is very inside baseball, like when TAG made a new chronograph movement that accelerated at the same rate as a classic 911. This new watch is somewhere in the middle, with some clever visual winks to the car that inspired it, but nothing new under the hood. The new watch takes its specific inspiration from Porsche’s success in endurance racing. The Porsche 963, developed under Le Mans Daytona Hybrid regulations, is the current pinnacle of Porsche’s expertise in endurance, a tradition that goes back decades. This is an aggressive take on the Carrera, which is a watch that we’ve seen wear many different capes in recent years. It’s a platform that is perhaps most at home as a traditional, elegant, gentleman’s racing chronograph, but can flex into something far more contemporary with relative ease. The 44mm case is stainless steel and coated in black PVD, and has been accented with a carbon fiber bezel with a tachymetric scale. Naturally we get a complex, skeletonized dial (nothing says “modern and contemporary” like skeletonization, I guess) as well as plenty of lume. The lume is actually what most closely links t...
SJX Watches
Singer Reimagined is dropping new variants of the 1969 Chronograph and 1969 Timer that maintain the same design as the originals from last year, but with the option of a new case material, bronze, as well as new dial colours. The bronze models get a matte green dial, while the steel variants have a sun-ray, silver-toned dial. Initial thoughts An outlier amongst watch brands, Singer Reimagined is actually the sister brand of Singer Vehicle Design, one of the most prominent rebuilders of vintage Porsches. So rather than the usual watch brand making a car-inspired watch, it is a carmaker making a watch. The 1969 Timer The unusual chronograph display, retro cushion-shaped case, and racetrack-inspired bracelet all have clear automotive inspiration and are fairly unique in themselves, but for watch enthusiasts the key selling point will be the Agenhor movements (both are equipped with variants of the same base calibre). The movement is especially notable for its ingenious construction, where amongst other innovations the rotor is placed underneath the dial to provide an unobstructed view of the moving parts. The 1969 Chronograph movement Priced at CHF31,500 and CHF53,500 respectively, the 1969 Timer and the 1969 Chronograph aren’t inexpensive. While the 1969 Timer is relatively simple as a one-minute timer and consequently pricey, the chronograph is priced fairly given the unique nature of the movement. New variations of existing lineups The Singer Reimagined 1969 models share...
Quill & Pad
Some watches are so perfect there isn't a thing you want to be changed about them. For Martin Green, this was the case with the Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Split-Seconds Chronograph Ultra-Thin Collection Excellence Platine. Apart from its name, which he thinks is decidedly too long. But a look through the display back more than makes up for that.
Deployant
The Chopard Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph "La Gara Dial" is a classic design and an elegant addition to the Mille Miglia collection. For those who appreciate the romance of the open road and the tick of a classic motorsports chronograph, the "La Gara Dial" is a fitting tribute to the legacy of the Mille Miglia race. Perhaps a nice memorabilia particularly for participants of the race. But for regular watch fans, the watch may appear less competitive in its price category, primarily dragged down by its choice of movement.
Teddy Baldassarre
From the beginning of 1953 to the end of 1954, Rolex had perhaps the most productive and impactful period that any watchmaker had ever managed in a two-year stretch. The Explorer, the gold standard of adventure-oriented luxury watches, debuted in the summer of 1953 and the first Submariner, the quintessential diver’s watch, was manufactured that same year. The Submariner’s public debut wasn’t until 1954 at the Basel Watch Fair, but it wasn’t the only trendsetting Rolex watch the Crown released that year: the other was the original GMT-Master, the dual-time travel watch against which all others are measured. Photo: Matthew Bain We all are familiar with the three iconic Oyster Perpetual timepieces above, but few may be aware that Rolex released another tool watch in 1953, whose production not only preceded that of the Submariner and GMT-Master but whose signature design feature influenced the look of both. That watch is the Rolex Turn-o-Graph, the first serially produced Rolex tool watch equipped with a rotating bezel that could be used for timing intervals. (To be thorough, it should be noted that it was not the very first Rolex watch with such a feature: the Zerographe Ref. 3346, made way back in 1937, takes that honor, along with the distinction of being the first Rolex watch with a movement made in-house - with a flyback chronograph, no less. The rarest of unicorns, the Zerographe (below) is nearly forgotten today, rarely mentioned in official Rolex literatur...
Hodinkee
Up close and way too personal with three Patek 1463 chronographs to discuss condition.
Worn & Wound
A little over a year on from the release of the DB Eight, De Bethune is following up the mono-usher chronograph with two new variants, each in gold, and each of which offers a welcome look back at the early days of the brand. De Bethune is a brand well-versed in the avant-garde. The name alone tends to conjure images of remarkably blue tourbillons with spring-loaded lugs, and other sci-fi-esque watches. In the last few years, De Bethune has become well known for pushing the boundaries of watchmaking in both a technical and aesthetic sense - they even sent a watch to (near) space on the wrist of Michael Strahan. If you’re only familiar with De Bethune thanks to watches like the DB28 Kind of Blue Tourbillon or the DB28GS Yellow Submarine, looking back at the early days of De Bethune might come with a bit of a surprise. Early De Bethunes stood out not because of any outrageous architecture or wild case finishing, but rather thanks to a refined - and very traditional - look, backed up by the technical prowess of Denis Flageollet, the brand’s founder. The DB8 was one of these early, very traditional watches. Though still identifiable as a De Bethune thanks to its bullet lugs and three-part case, the DB8 was (in most senses) a very traditional take on the concept of a mono-pusher chronograph dress watch. The new DB Eight is a fitting follow up to that watch, holding on to much of the original’s concept and charm, but with each and every detail refined and update...
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