Latest watch news · Page 5

Urwerk's latest satellite watch arrives with a completely fresh architecture inside and out. The Urwerk UR-300 Time Quantum introduces an all-new case and movement to the Geneva brand's iconic satellite hour display lineup.

The wildly popular Loco gets a dress-watch makeover, and the result is one of the most compelling British-designed watches of the year. The Christopher Ward C1 Loco Classic takes the brand's beloved Loco architecture and reframes it as a refined dress watch with six-day power reserve.

This story has been republished from our friends at Hodinkee Australia. What We Know Today, a luxury sports watch with a rubber strap is nothing revolutionary, but in 1980 it was scandalous. Italian watchmaker and entrepreneur Carlo Crocco fired the starting gun on a casual-luxury sports watch revolution when he combined a gold case with a rubber strap to build his ultimate Mediterranean summer watch: the MDM 'La Hublot.' Turns out his idea caught on and was quickly embraced by royalty in Monaco, Spain and Sweden, to name just a few. An archival shot of Carlo Crocco posing with early MDM Hublot models. Rarely-seen 'pre-Biver' Hublots, including chronographs and a dive watch. The original MDM 'La Hublot' and the new Hublot Classic Fusion Tributo. It's hard to imagine that Hublot is almost 50 years old. We as collectors tend to think of it as a young brand - and in many senses, it still is - but a half-century ain't nothing to sniff at. 46 years after its inaugural release, Hublot is going all the way back to its Carlo Crocco roots with the Hublot Classic Fusion Tributo, a standard-production watch that pays tribute to where the maverick brand started, made with the input of Mr Crocco himself (who officially exited Hublot in 2008). This release encompasses two models in 38mm, one in yellow gold and one in white gold, both housing a Zenith-sourced movement. In a departure from the standard Classic Fusion, the Tributo returns to the original MDM Hublot's 12-screw bezel design ...

Forty-six years ago, Carlo Crocco put a gold watch on a rubber strap, and everyone told him he was mad. Now, Hublot has brought it back as the Classic Fusion Tributo. I sat down with him in Nyon, a week before his 82nd birthday, to hear where it really came from. Picture the showroom at […] Visit The New Hublot Classic Fusion Tributo Takes Us Back To 1980 to read the full article.

Before the Big Bang exploded on the watch scene in 2005, Carlo Crocco had already set the wheels of Hublot’s universe in motion. His 1980 watch, with its unorthodox mix of gold and rubber, introduced the Art of Fusion that would later become the brand’s calling card. Returning to the source, the Classic Fusion Tributo […]

The new Hublot Classic Fusion Tributo takes inspiration from Carlo Crocco's original MDM designs that launched the brand.

The Hublot Classic Fusion Tributo returns to Carlo Crocco’s original 1980 design, when Hublot was the name of a watch made by MDM Genève. The Tributo’s 38 mm gold case restores the original 12-screw bezel, while a Zenith-derived automatic replaces quartz beneath an austere black dial. The yellow gold variant sticks close to the original design, while its white gold sibling pairs a black onyx dial with blackened bezel screws for a high-contrast monochromatic look. Initial thoughts While today Hublot is almost synonymous with the Big Bang and other large, sometimes extravagant watches, the brand’s origin as a single model made by MDM Genève is rooted in Italian elegance. The original quartz-powered model from 1980 was the first watch to pair a precious metal case with a rubber strap, a then-unheard-of configuration that was nonetheless perfectly suited to la dolce vita in the Italian sun. The Classic Fusion Tributo honours founder Carlo Crocco’s original design, complete with 12 bezel screws and a low-profile feel on the wrist, while being sized up to contemporary standards and equipped with a competent automatic movement courtesy of sister brand Zenith. The white gold version’s onyx dial, an upgrade relative to both the original and the black lacquer of the 2023 remake, is another difference that taps into the ongoing stone dial trend. But it does so in a low-key way that makes sense for the design and doesn’t feel faddish. Curiously, the yellow gold version s...

Arnold & Son has forged its identity around the legacy of the 18th-century English chronometer maker John Arnold. Its collections are grouped into three categories (astronomy, chronometry and world time), each reflecting a different dimension of his work. One of the brand’s signature complications is the true seconds, also known as a deadbeat seconds mechanism. […]

Since its foundation in 1997, Urwerk has looked at mechanical watchmaking from a very unconventional perspective. Co-founders Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei have developed an unmistakable style, with satellite hours, wandering displays, and retrograde indications. Their watches frequently take inspiration from astronomy, but the new UR-300 Time Quantum looks not to heavenly bodies but to […]

Urwerk’s latest interpretation of the wandering hours complication ventures beyond classical physics with the UR-300 Time Quantum, which debuts a cleverly constructed jumping display inspired by quantum mechanics. Housed in a sleek new titanium case with a choice of finishes, the UR-300 is almost as cutting-edge on the inside as its futuristic design makes it out to be, with LIGA-formed levers and wheels that catapult the display forwards in the blink of an eye. Initial thoughts According to Urwerk, the design of the UR-300 was inspired by the property of quantum entanglement, which informed the functional design of the new jumping wandering hours module. This explains why when one of the two “atoms” responsible for the hours flips, so does the other. I got a preview of the prototype movement earlier this year and was immediately taken by the new display and the elegance of its mechanism, which takes a familiar look and adds a surprising, jumping twist. The final design of the space ship-like case suits the concept, making it immediately recognisable as an Urwerk. Ultimately, the unique selling proposition of this watch is aesthetic, but it’s an aesthetic that only works thanks to clever engineering. That said, the roughly US$200,000 asking price is steep by the standards of high-end wandering hours complications, whether from Urwerk or larger brands like Audemars Piguet that, admittedly, have vastly different economies of scale. But no brand does futurism quite li...

What We Know If you know Urwerk, you know that they've always been looking toward the stars, making instantly recognizable watches with the brand's iconic satellite display that rotates around the dial, with the hour pointing to the minute track as the whole display turns and snaps to reveal each passing hour. They've played with a variety of approaches to this concept, widening the minute track and speeding up the snap as well, but today's release of the UR-300 "Time Quantum" introduces a new mechanic that the brand says is inspired by things at the atomic level. Not to be confused with Urwerk's other atomic-inspired watch (one of my top 10 favorite all-time modern watches, the AMC special), this watch draws from the concept of polarized entities—neutrons and electrons—swirling around. Instead of the rotating single carousel in the past, the new display features a "T-frame" structure. The current hour displays as usual; the flat portion of a triangular hour module is made of beryllium copper, brass, anodized aluminum, ARCAP AP1D, and titanium, and points to the current minute as it travels on a 108º arc. The other hours are rotated 120º on their axis to hide them for legibility. Once it approaches the 60th minute (and transitions to 0), three things happen. Power built up during the rotation forces the T-Frame into rotation in a split second. The frame jumps forward and rotates 72º to put the next hour display into position, also rotating the hour module to be visi...

Urwerk releases a new collection with a fresh new case and movement and an interesting story accompanying the UR-300 Time Quantum.

Hermès introduced the H08 collection in 2021 as a different take on the sporty-chic watch, first launched as a time-and-date series, then updated with a monopusher chronograph and, more recently, a skeleton model. The H08 stands out for its rounded square case, original Arabic numerals on the dial, and a mix of surfaces and materials […]

IWC Schaffhausen has marked the Chinese New Year with some interesting special editions in recent years, most of them featuring burgundy dials, from the burgundy-and-gold Portugieser for the Year of the Rabbit to the dragon-themed edition that followed and the latest Year of the Horse watch. Up next for the occasion is yet another themed […]

The Year of the Goat starts on February 6th, 2027, but IWC is getting a head start on the festivities. Today, the brand from Schaffhausen announces the Pilot’s Watch Performance Chronograph 41 ref. IW388310, a 500-piece limited edition for those who want to celebrate this Chinese zodiac sign with an iconic chrono. The IWC Pilot’s […] Visit Meet The IWC Pilot’s Watch Performance Chronograph 41 Year Of The Goat to read the full article.

Fortis takes its revamped dive chronograph and dials up the lume, hard. The Novonaut N-42 Halo is exactly what the name suggests. The Fortis Novonaut N-42 Halo is a fully luminous take on the brand's space chronograph, with updated dial treatment and movement refinements.

This is not the first time you’ve read about cônillons. Do you still remember what a cônillon is? Let me jog your memory. It is a tilted tourbillon regulator with a tilted balance that follows a conical path rather than a conventional flat plane. It’s not a new concept. The American watchmaker Andrew Holden Potter […] Visit Hands-On With Two Cônillons: Trying Out The ArtyA Complexity Métiers d’Art to read the full article.