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![The New Ulysse Nardin Freak [x] is smaller, thinner, and easier to live with than ever](https://monochrome-watches.com/app/uploads/2026/07/2026-Ulysse-Nardin-Blast-Moonstruck-Rose-Gold-Edition-1.jpg)
WristBuzz
The second-generation Freak [X] gets a new micro-rotor movement, a 41 mm case, and an interchangeable strap system, making Ludwig Oechslin's wild idea more wearable than it's ever been
Fratello
Nomos Glashütte has expanded the Ahoi Neomatik collection with two new dial colors called Sky and Sand. While these shades already existed within the larger Ahoi Date lineup, this marks their debut in the compact 36.3mm no-date version. The result is a pair of watches that feel familiar yet notably different thanks to their smaller […] Visit The Nomos Ahoi Neomatik Gets New Sky And Sand Dials In The Compact 36.3mm Case to read the full article.
WristBuzz
Two of indie watchmaking's sharpest voices combine heat-coloured titanium and hand-engraved guilloché into something that feels genuinely new
Worn & Wound
Some cityscapes have more iconic skylines than others, but it’s hard to argue that Tokyo’s massive metropolitan sprawl hasn’t inspired decades of media, art, and yes, watches. Cyberpunk anime and JRPGs aside, it’s one of the most recognizable urban landscapes in the world, and its neon-drenched shopping districts, blend of modernist and classical architecture, and towering skyscrapers make an excellent canvas. Enter Seiko’s new King Seiko VANAC models, taking design inspiration directly from Tokyo’s skyline, and introducing three new dial colors. Each of the new VANAC models is housed in a sporty 41mm case (45.1mm lug-to-lug) with an integrated bracelet. It’s a familiar shape for King Seiko models, but it maintains that classy, versatile outline without appearing too outdated. It’s an almost ‘70s or ‘80s look, despite the larger, modern dimensions, and suits the dial design well; the indices and squared-off hands have an Art Deco look, which pairs nicely with the angular screw-down crown and geometric lines of the case. The seconds hand in particular, finished in silver to match the stainless steel case, has a delicate, skeleton “v” shape as a counterweight at the top end, which adds a flair of elegance to the design. A date window at 3 o’clock helps the dial maintain a balanced look, and the layered radial pattern of the minute track, and horizontal line texture of the dial does bring to mind the organized chaos of Tokyo’s “vast horizon”....
Worn & Wound
If you had told me a few years ago that much of what I’d be doing at Worn & Wound in terms of new release coverage would be writing about mother of pearl and stone dial executions like a beat reporter at small town paper assigned to the high school basketball team, I probably would not have believed it. But here we are, multiple years into a trend that does not really seem to be letting up. It started with a resurfacing of high end vintage watches with exotic stone dials, moved to bigger brands capitalizing on the hype, shifted to smaller makers and microbrands offering impossibly affordable options, and now we’re back at the high end, and seeing brands looking for new ways to combine stones and materials in novel ways. Last week, Czapek announced a pair of watches that make particularly interesting use of mother of pearl. The Antarctique S Ice Cloud is, at a glance, simply an Antarctique with a mother of pearl dial. But there’s some special artisanal work that has gone into the making of this particular dial, which has been conceived as a “poetic interpretation of cloud formations in an icy landscape.” The dial is constructed from a piece of white mother of pearl that is cut to just 0.2mm thick – the height of two sheets of paper, according to Czapek. A varnish is then applied to the underside of the mother of pearl surface using a horsehair brush, which creates a cloudlike pattern that is unique to each dial. The varnish itself is tinted blue, and the art...
Video
The world may have gone crazy for the AP Swatch collaboration, but what they really missed is this Hamilton Khaki Mechanical in a 36mm size. Why is this so important? Well, it not only celebrates the 250th anniversary...
Hodinkee
If you're a vintage lover who thought the days of modern 36mm ultra-thin perpetual calendars were behind us, Vacheron has your back. But how does it stack up?
Worn & Wound
Ah, the moon. Romantic, mysterious, and the subject of many Creative Writing 101 poems, our closest celestial body has also wormed its way onto many a watch face over the years. Moonphase watches evoke a sense of sophistication and elegance, and tend to decorate watchmakers’ dressier lines, despite their somewhat subversive practicality. Farer’s moonphase collection is no exception; first launched in 2023, it took one of watchmaking’s oldest complications and applied it to the British brand’s own design ethos. Here in 2025, we have two new references to pad out that lineup: The Stratton and Burbidge Eastern Arabic Editions. Taking the same basic design of the rest of the line, the new Moonphase models are wrapped in a 38.5mm cushion case with curved sides that wear a “grain twist” texture. The case scallops in the 43.8mm between the lugs to make the strap sit flush, and a rounded crown with a solid bronze cap finishes the vintage-adjacent case look. Inside, both Moonphase models are powered by a Sellita SW288-1 M Elabore Grade movement, with blued screws and a Farer-embossed bridge. The Sellita movement allows for a 45-hour power reserve, and hour, minute, seconds, date, and of course, moonphase functions. Where the models differ is in their case material and dial design. The Stratton Edition-named for Frederick Stratton, a WWI veteran, mathematician, and astronomer who would eventually serve as Director of the Solar Physics Observatory, among many other ...
Two Broke Watch Snobs
The Seiko Prospex Speedtimer “Motoring” channels vintage Rolex Daytona vibes with a cream dial, steel bezel, and affordable sub-$1K price.
Monochrome
Montblanc, the renowned producer of luxury fountain pens since 1906, entered the watchmaking arena in 1997. Keen to enhance its horological credentials, Montblanc acquired the famous Minerva manufacture in 2006. While the brand’s vintage-inspired 1858 line takes inspiration from Minerva’s historical watches and is named after the year the fabled manufacture was founded, it would […]
Worn & Wound
We’re several years deep into the era of collaborative, limited edition watch releases, and while a lot of the hype has subsided around some of these drops, there’s no sign that the overall strategy is shifting anytime soon. Brands both large and small are still keen to slap partner logos on dials and casebacks, and draw parallels between watches and, well, you name it. Obviously, the automotive world is ripe for these collaborations, and is the window through which a trio of new Seikos come into our lives. Three limited edition references made in partnership with Datsun are the headline here, but in a smart move, Seiko is simultaneously announcing corresponding regular production models that riff on the same themes without all the branding. So there’s something here for the Datsun enthusiast (of which we know there are many) as well as those that are more inclined to shun this type of commercial cross-polination and just want their watch to be a watch and not an exercise in remembering a very specific link to a carmaker’s history. The premise for all these watches (or rather, for the limited editions) is Seiko’s relationship with Datsun, which dates back to the early 1970s when Seiko supported the 240Z in races across the world. Most notably, Seiko was a sponsor of the #11 car that won the East-African Safari Rally, a 6,200 kilometer race that is generally regarded as one of the most challenging on the international circuit. All of the watches discussed here...
Video
Hands on review: Tudor Black Bay Chrono 39 Bumblebee yellow dial
Worn & Wound
Louis Erard, in a move that I think many who follow the brand will view as somewhat surprising, announced a new watch last week along with the news that their longstanding Excellence collection, which has been the home to many of the collaborative limited editions that have propelled the brand to a new level of notoriety over the past several years, is being replaced. Those watches now fall under a new banner, the Noirmont collection. This collection, in turn, is split up into three distinct subgroups, including the standalone “Noirmont,” “Noirmont X,” which would appear to be where you’ll find Louis Erard’s collaborations going forward, and “Noirmont Métiers d’Art.” This final line is where the brand’s latest release sits, the Régulateur Gravé Noir, which sees Louis Erard applying some traditional finishing techniques and vintage inspiration to a watch that has become a signature for them. To give you a sense of the other watches in the Noirmont Métiers d’Art collection, this is where you’ll find the recent Petite Seconde guilloche pieces, as well as their newer regulator with an enamel dial. The new Régulateur Gravé Noir (we’ll just call it the Gravé from here on out) is, as Louis Erard puts it, a new spin on the classic sector dial. The regulator format, it would seem, would be a natural choice to experiment with the sector layout, and in fact you could argue that just about any execution of a regulator is going to have some sector dial ...
Worn & Wound
Three years after the debut of the MR01, Baltic has updated their popular micro-rotor movement powered dress watch line in a big way. The new MR Roulette collection, which debuts today, offers a new take on the platform with a slightly more casual, sector dial inspired layout. Coming on the heels of the Prismic collection, a series of watches that drew intense reactions in all directions, the MR Roulette feels like a return to the aesthetic that made Baltic the brand they are today, with modest vintage cues, a mixing of textures, and an enticing price point. The MR Roulette is built on the same foundation of previous micro-rotor powered watches in Baltic’s catalog. It has a 36mm steel case with a flat, vertically brushed bezel and lugs that are brushed in a complementary circular pattern. The case is accented with tasteful polishing on the bezel wall, and measures an easy to wear 44mm from lug to lug. If you’ve ever tried on the original MR01, you know that this case truly wears like a vintage watch, not only its proportions, but it has a light and airy quality to it as well. It measures just 9.9mm tall, but feels thinner because nearly 2mm of that height is taken up by the domed hesalite crystal. The new dials are available in salmon, silver, blue, and black variants. All but the black feature a grained background paired with two brushed sectors: an interior track for the hours, and an exterior track for the minutes. The running seconds subdial is off-center, cove...
Deployant
NOMOS Orion neomatik new black: The new model from NOMOS Glashütte represents style, sophistication, and beauty in three refined versions.
Fratello
It’s the little things that matter. If you believe so, please take a closer look at the new Nomos Orion Neomatik New Black, which comes in three iterations. At first glance, these watches all look pretty much the same, but they’re not. There are three sizes, for instance, and Nomos also plays with different color […] Visit A Hands-On Introduction To The Nomos Orion Neomatik New Black In Three Iterations to read the full article.
Hodinkee
A one-for-one reissue of a vintage favorite slims the Antarctic down to original proportions. We got our hands on both to pick a favorite.
Video
Worn & Wound
This weekend marked the 100th running of the 24 hour race of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe in France, and Rolex took full advantage of the occasion with the release of a new Daytona with a dial that recalls the now famous ‘exotic’ dial, aka Newman dial, of older references. This release is surprising for a few reasons, and may even offer some insight to what we might expect from Rolex moving forward. We’ll get to all that, but in many ways, this is the Daytona that enthusiasts have been asking for since the late ‘80s – it’s the ‘greatest hits’ watch, perfectly capitalizing on the the new Daytona chassis released just earlier this year at Watches & Wonders, which we went hands-on with right here. First and foremost, Rolex is not in the habit of dropping new releases outside of their regular yearly cadence. We last saw it with the release of the Deepsea Challenge in late 2022, the first commercial Rolex to tout their RLX titanium material. While that watch could be considered something of an outlier, given its rather extreme nature, the Daytona is another story entirely. This new reference, the 126529LN officially, joins the new collection as a regular production model. That reference number ends in four characters that have never appeared together in the Daytona family, the 29 indicating a full white gold case and bracelet, and LN, or Lunette Noir, meaning it sports a black Cerachrom bezel. Vintage Rolex Daytona reference 6263 with exotic dial The firs...
Worn & Wound
When I hear the words “Doxa Sub,” it’s hard for me to not start conjuring images in the ol’ noggin of that wide cushion, pebble-like steel case, the orange accented no-deco table splitting bezel duty with an elapsed time display, and the ever-so whimsical dial. The Sub 300 is a damn near perfect watch, in my humble opinion. But lately (over the course of two years), Doxa has given their flagship dive watch some company within their catalog by way of a couple releases that, at glance, might not resemble the Doxa you and I are used to. The brand with a storied history in the sport of diving and oceanic exploration has been doing some exploring of their own, but into different case design waters. I’m referring to their contemporary divers that use more of a conventional round case shape like the Sub 200 and the Sub 200 C-Graph. Recently, Doxa released the second coming of their Sub 200 chronograph with the Sub 200 C-Graph II. There are notable differences with the newcomer that include several models within the collection now sporting a steel bezel (as a traditional Doxa should have), a new dial finish, and smaller case proportions that amount to a more wearable, everyday diver. When the Doxa Sub 200 C-Graph was introduced in 2020, it reintroduced a chronograph into their expansive regular production diver collection. It was (and still is) a three-register chronograph that attempted to keep some of the vintage charm with its faux-patina markers. In terms of its case...
Worn & Wound
One of the reasons we love vintage watches is for the stories they tell. Yes, that’s a bit of a cliche, but every so often a watch comes to our attention that is truly historic, and really drives the point home. There are watches that hold personal meaning to their owners (family heirlooms passed down through the generations, for example), and watches that hold special and often outsize significance to small groups of collectors (like a Tiffany stamp on a vintage Rolex). But a watch like the Speedmaster Eric Wind listed for sale recently falls into another category altogether. This watch, worn by astronaut Scott Carpenter, exists at the place where watchmaking history and American history meet. It wouldn’t be out of place in a museum, but if you have the cash, it can be yours. First, a little background on Carpenter, because the fact that this watch was his personal Speedmaster is a huge part of what makes it special, particularly to hardcore vintage watch enthusiasts. Carpenter was an American naval officer and test pilot who was selected as one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts 1959. After John Glenn, Carpenter was the second American to orbit the earth, and was a key figure in the early days of the space program when it both captured the imagination of the world and was arguably at its most dangerous. Carpenter’s space flights did not go off without a hitch – his Aurora 7 spacecraft that flew in the Mercury-Atlas 7 mission famously splashed down 250 mil...
Quill & Pad
For many watch enthusiasts, it is probably not a stretch to say that fine timepieces are often enjoyed with a fine glass of bubbly. So without further ado, here are five much-heralded prestige champagne releases from the stellar 2012 vintage that stand out for their extraordinary “taste.” Just in time for you to toast the start of 2023!
Quill & Pad
The Piaget Rectangle à l'Ancienne, an “old-fashioned rectangle,” might have a blunt description for a name but this vintage watch is much more than that; it is a timepiece that exquisitely represents the essence of Piaget.
Video
Collaborating with the Sea Turtle Conservancy, an organisation aiming to protect and preserve the life and wellbeing of sea turtles, Certina introduces the next-gen DS Super PH2000M dive watch. This ultra-robust divin...
Deployant
The petite seconde configuration and flat case with stepped bezel is a stylistic homage to vintage timepieces. It echoes the era of fixed lugs monobloc cases that were once made from nickel plated brass. The spade hands and arabic numerals are flanked by a railroad minutes track which matches the classic look. While this may have to do with branding, a simpler logo without the large POLO font could have added more balance to the dial which favors the more subdued look. Otherwise, we welcome Polo Ralph Lauren's new Vintage 67 which acts as an avenue to initiate fashion lovers to the world of watchmaking, starting with the fine handwinding La Joux Perret movement. The watch is priced at US$2,700.
Hodinkee
The long-awaited release from the sister brand of the independent watchmaker Hajime Asaoka is a marriage between vintage style and modern quality.
Revolution
Watch collectors are turning to vintage markets for rare and valuable timepieces, buying luxury watches with services like Authenticity Guarantee from eBay are making it easier than ever to invest with confidence.
Deployant
Bell & Ross Vintage BR V2-94 FULL LUM. We took the watch for a week's spin, and give you our hands-on comprehensive review.
SJX Watches
Blancpain’s iconic dive watch introduced in 1953, the Fifty Fathoms was named after the maximum depth then considered to be safe for divers, about 91 m. The Fifty Fathoms also claims the title of being the first purpose-built dive watch, though Rolex contends that its Submariner came first. Produced in a great many iterations, the Fifty Fathoms has become highly collectible in good number of variations, including those bearing the “No Radiations” logo – used in the early 1960s to indicate that radioactive radium was no longer used for the luminescence of the dial. That watch has now been revived by Blancpain as the Tribute to Fifty Fathoms No Rad, a limited edition that channels the spirit of the 1960s original, but executed in modern-day Blancpain quality. An example of the vintage Fifty Fathoms “No Radiations” Initial thoughts A staple of Blancpain’s line up, the Fifty Fathoms has been revived in various guises over the last few years, with the latest “No Rad” being the latest of several vintage remakes. The abundance of Fifty Fathoms limited editions – all similar but slightly different – have diminished its uniqueness somewhat, but the “No Rad” is nonetheless compelling. For one, the design has some provenance: the vintage “No Radiations” is a rare watch that’s exploded in value on the secondary market. And the “No Radiations” dial is quaint and quirky, but also historically significant in the transition from radium to tritium, c...
Video
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