It seems that the world has gone mad… In just a month, the watch world has been talking almost exclusively about one thing, the last batch Patek Philippe 5711 and its ‘Tiffany Blue’ (or light blue) dial. Over the past 5 weeks, this has become THE trend to follow. And then consider that any attention for light blue dials was almost non-existing. In all fairness, if you ask me, I d...
Welcome to The Collector's Corner, a new series of stories about watches from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, and maybe the occasional watch from the 1970s. You could say, ‘post quartz-crisis watches’ or watches from the renaissance of high-end watchmaking or ‘youngtimers’ or ‘neo-vintage’. Whatever you (or we) call these watches, there are so many very cool w...
In a world that seemingly goes mental from time to time, it's worth trying to keep a clear focus on things. The Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711/1A-018 Tiffany is out of reach for pretty much all of us, and prices for the Oyster Perpetual with Turquoise dials have been pushed to ridiculous heights. The watch world tends to sway back and forth between reference numbers, colours, materials, complicati...
The word icon is, unfortunately, used and abused by the industry. There are, nevertheless, true iconic watches, most of them introduced during the golden era of mechanical watchmaking during the 1950s and 1960s. When it comes to “modern icons”, watches that have been presented after the quartz crisis, few can rival the importance of the Lange 1, a watch that has been instrumental in th...
The vintage and pre-owned luxury watch market is thriving like never. It has transformed dramatically over the past few years with the arrival of strategic investors. One of the world’s leading second-hand watch e-commerce platforms, WatchBox, recently secured USD 165 million in funding to support its expansion. MONOCHROME reached out to Justin Reis, CEO of WatchBox, to discuss the developme...
Vacheron Constantin is a veritable pioneer in horological complications and began producing complications soon after its foundation in 1755. The tradition of piling complication upon complication is alive and kicking today.?Designed to celebrate its 260th anniversary in 2015, Vacheron released ref. 57260, the most complicated pocket watch ever with a staggering 57 complications followed by the Spl...
First things first, the watch industry is going a little crazy as Tiffany seems to be all the rage at the moment. Thanks to the Patek Philippe Nautilus with Tiffany dial going through the roof recently, all things closely matching the famous Tiffany Blue seem to skyrocket in attention, and prices. And then we learn about the Batavi Architect Turquoise Blue & Tony Purple. Bad timing? Good timin...
The Autavia is an important collection for TAG Heuer. The watch, the first designed and launched under the leadership of Jack Heuer in 1962, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. The name, a portmanteau of automobile and aviation, makes no doubt on the vocation of the watch, an instrument to time events and races. As such, the chronograph has always been part of the collection’s DNA...
We've heard about Oris' incentives to support the removal of plastics from the ocean and make straps and dials from recycled PET, about initiatives to restore the coral reefs and conservation efforts to ensure the blue whale and dolphin are protected from underwater noise pollution and fishing nets, but this is probably the first time we've come across a watch made in collaboration with a sustaina...
The highlight of 2021 for Grand Seiko has been, without a doubt, the White Birch Hi-Beat SLGH005, a watch that came on the market with a stunning silvery-white textured dial, a relatively new case design (sharper and slimmer) and an impressive movement with multiple mechanical innovations, including the Dual Impulse escapement. For a couple of years now, Grand Seiko is definitely hot and its watch...
Forget about the hype, go your own way… Look beyond the mainstream, seek new brands, look for the unusual and go for what you truly love! This is how you could summarize this new instalment of our collector’s interviews. Today we meet with Scott (29), a collector from Seattle, Washington in the USA. And he has a love for unusual, weird watches, preferably from brands that are not made ...
If you’re a recurring reader of MONOCHROME, you should very well be aware that we, as a team, have a thing for chronographs, and specifically, vintage-inspired chronographs manufactured by?husband-and-wife duo Richard and Maria Habring. After all, this was the inspiration behind our very first Montre de Souscription, a sector dial monopusher with salmon colour… And since we’re de...
A. Lange & Sohne is a brand we hold in high regard, for being able to perfectly blend formidable watchmaking capabilities with artistic craftsmanship. Whether we're talking about something extremely complex as the Tourbograph, or perhaps a more classical 1815, the attention to detail is on par across all collections. During the past year, A. Lange & Sohne has presented several extremely im...
Batavi Watches is named after an ancient Germanic tribe living along the river Rhine in what is known as the Netherlands. The spirit of the Batavi people resonated with the brand's founder, Ugur Mamak, mostly as the tribe fought off several attempts by oppressors, including Julius Caesar. Going against the grains in an effort to find its bit of the market for a long time coming, Batavi Watches has...
Although it doesn’t have the cachet of a Speedmaster with its legendary Moon landing or a Seamaster worn in an action-packed James Bond episode, the Omega Constellation is one of the brand’s oldest and most enduring collections that started life in 1952 as a precision chronometer wristwatch. Revisited over the years, the transformation that most influenced the contemporary look of the ...
Repeater clocks were invented well before electric lighting, in order to be able to consult the time in the dead of night. By activating a trigger or a pusher, a repeater chimes the time on demand and is often regarded, and rightfully so, as one of the pinnacles of mechanical watchmaking. Dozens of components, manufactured to exact tolerances, must be combined to orchestrate these extremely comple...
Looking back at 2021 as Oris must be quite satisfactory since, at least according to us, it has introduced a fair number of very good watches. Of course, it’s mostly about the new Calibre 400 series of movements, developed in-house, but that's not all. Across pretty much all collections in the brand's arsenal, we saw new models with upgraded materials and specifications. And yet, as we kind ...
In September 2021, Audemars Piguet introduced two new models to its Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Chronograph?line-up. Decked out in light blue or khaki, there are plenty of novelties on the dial and in the strap department, but above all, the big news is the incorporation of Audemars Piguet’s latest automatic flyback chronograph movement, calibre 4404. As always, it’s the characteris...
One of the stars of the LVMH Group, Bvlgari, the Swiss manufacturer with Italian roots, has earned a place in the watchmaking spotlight by continuously presenting record-breaking watches with the Octo Finissimo collection. And year after year, since the first one in 2014, the brand does not disappoint. Sure enough, in 2021, we saw the introduction of the world’s thinnest Perpetual Calendar w...
Almost exactly 3 years ago, Omega gave Speedmaster fans one of the best possible gifts possible, the re-introduction of the historic Calibre 321, the movement that first equipped the Speedy from 1957 to the late 1960s. This will be followed by another important introduction, that of the Speedmaster Moonwatch Calibre 321, a watch that we extensively reviewed and named the Ultimate Speedmaster. Toda...
The epitome of technical complexity and restrained elegance, the?Vacheron Constantin?Patrimony Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin was first presented in 2011. Appearing with a blue dial (2019) and a slate grey dial (2017), the most classical interpretation is the present pink gold model with a silvery opaline dial. Retaining the essential styling of the Patrimony collection that references VC’s m...
A cartoon or comic book character on the dial of a high-end luxury watch? Why not? Watches don’t have to be serious. Pop culture icons are increasingly in vogue, and luxury watch brands are now resurrecting a concept that has long been forgotten by traditional, relatively serious or technical watchmaking. But recently, even the most high-end watch manufacturers have been surfing the wave of ...
In a year of transition and of mild creativity, many luxury brands have played on the safe side and released only minor new models, or simply evolutions of existing watches. Think new colours, new materials, the addition of complications, but not much was groundbreakingly new. Yet, in these days of conservatism, some brands have shown audacity and haven’t held back their launch schedule. Amo...
Last week, right before Christmas, I wrote a rather personal column looking back at the most important things I’d remember from 2021 – regarding watches and the watchmaking industry, of course. As 2022 is right around the corner, it’s time for me to share my thoughts regarding the future. 2021 has been a year of transition for the industry, with its ups and downs, its good moment...
In a year where IWC Schaffhausen has put the (Big) Pilot’s Watch collections under a massive spotlight, we’ve seen numerous interesting new editions being presented. This can be either in colour combinations, materials, or movement types. While we have seen novelties outside of the (Big) Pilot's Watch collections, the quintessential Flieger Uhr by IWC was all the rage. With that in min...
When F.P. Journe unveiled its LineSport Chronographe Monopoussoir Rattrapante?during SIHH 2018, it caught our eye for several reasons. Not only was it F.P. Journe’s first split-seconds chronograph in regular production, but it also came with a surprisingly attractive price tag, making it one of the best value propositions in the rarefied world of rattrapantes. Presented in precious metal cas...
With the end of the year fast approaching, we’ve decided to look at the best models launched by the most productive manufacturers in 2021. Not all brands were equal this year, with most of them playing conservative, either by releasing only evolutions of existing collections or new colours/materials, either by releasing a very limited amount of watches. This wasn’t the case for Patek P...
For many brands, 2021 has been an incredibly challenging year, not only to navigate through the pandemic for the second year in a row but also to push the envelope and present one or more new models and collections. While some brands have postponed big releases to a later period in time, Omega decided to drop multiple important novelties. One of which was the unexpected but rather impressive Speed...
As we’re getting closer and closer to the end of the year 2021, we continue our series of buying guides looking at the best watches of the year per category. We’ve already looked at the best chronographs, the best of independent watchmaking, the best traveller’s watches and more. And today, we take a closer look at one of our favourite complications, the perpetual calendar. A mus...
2020 has been a difficult year for many of us. The combination of a pandemic and lockdowns has been dramatic for our lives and, because you're reading a magazine dedicated to watches, for the watchmaking industry. This year, 2021, has certainly been better on multiple levels, but not yet ideal, as we're still living in a world full of uncertainties. Looking at the bright side of things, 2021 has b...