Results for Ceramic Bezel Insert

Introducing - H. Moser & Cie. Releases its First Ceramic Model with the Streamliner Tourbillon Concept Ceramic

In just six years, H. Moser & Cie.’s fluid Streamliner luxury sports watch collection with integrated bracelets has grown exponentially. An indication of the roadmap Moser envisioned for the Streamliner, the first model of 2020 featured a sophisticated flyback chronograph. Now home to models ranging from central seconds to perpetual calendars and from small seconds […]

Introducing: The Final Baltic MR, With Two Different Black Dials And Gem-Set Moissanite Bezel

Baltic says goodbye to a great model with a glossy black dial and a splash of bling.

Baltic Closes Out the MR Collection with a Moissanite Bezel Limited Edition

I have a very clear memory of the time period around the launch of the Baltic MR01 collection, the first in their ongoing series of micro-rotor powered dress watches. It felt like a turning point for the brand, who up until then was really known as a heritage inspired sports watch microbrand. The MR series was a real left turn, and there was excitement around it across the watch community. The use of a micro-rotor powered automatic movement in a watch well under $1,000 was completely novel, and it signaled that Baltic had ambitions well beyond iterating on classic sports watch DNA. The intervening years have proven that out, as the brand no longer occupies such a narrow niche. If you had told me in 2021 that only a few years later my favorite Baltic would be their take on a cocktail watch, complete with stone dials, I never would have believed you.  The new MR Moissanite closes a chapter for Baltic. We’re told this is the final MR to be released in the current format, and that a refresh is coming. If that’s the case, Baltic has chosen to close out this incarnation of the MR with its most ostentatious execution to this point. The two dial variants seen here each feature bezels set with baguette cut moissanite gem stones, linking these watches in style and philosophy to the 1970s inspired Prismics linked above.  Moissanite, for the uninitiated, is a lab grown diamond alternative first introduced in the late 1990s. It has many physical qualities that are very similar to...

Urwerk Introduces the UR-100V LS Ceramic

The Urwerk UR-100 has become one of my favorite designs in high end independent watchmaking. Whenever I encounter one (a rare event given the brand’s annual production of just around 200 watches total) I’m blown away by the way it distills the essence of the brand into a completely wearable, compact, package. I’ve always been a fan of the Urwerk philosophy, but until I tried on a UR-100 I always felt the watches themselves might be too ungainly or oddly shaped for me personally. There’s something about this case though, mostly its impressive thinness, that makes it feel like a “normal” watch on the wrist but still something otherworldly when you look down to check the time. That, to me, feels like a sweet spot.  The latest from Urwerk brings a new watch into the UR-100 lineage with the UR-100V LS Ceramic. This is effectively a new variant of the original UR-100V LS (short for “light speed,” which we’ll get to momentarily) that appeared in 2024. The new watch features a white ceramic case, a first for the brand and more complex than it first appears, and the same whimsical ideology of its predecessor, and many other Urwerk watches, which are all in one way or another a commentary on timekeeping itself.  All Urwerks (well, almost all) share a common wandering hour satellite time telling mechanism that has become their calling card. It’s actually a rather mechanically elegant way to tell the time, basically with a wandering hour “pointer” to a fixed ...

Introducing - Travelling at the Speed of Light, Urwerk Releases the UR-100V LightSpeed Ceramic

Urwerk’s mechanical ingenuity and sci-fi vessels have propelled the brand into the realm of cosmic watchmaking. Renowned for their wandering hour and satellite indications, founders Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner captured the three dimensions of time, rotation and orbit with the UR-100 SpaceTime of 2019. An evolution of the UR-100, the UR-100V returns to Earth […]

Introducing - The New Designs of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Chronographs in Ceramic and Titanium

Since its debut in 1993, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore has served as the brand´s most expressive, aggressive, and experimental platform. Bigger, bolder and much more muscular than the original Royal Oak, the Offshore lived up to its “Beast” nickname, while becoming a showcase for material innovation and colour exploration. The 2021 redesign marked […]

Audemars Piguet Introduces the Code 11.59 Tourbillon in White Gold and Black Ceramic

Audemars Piguet Actually Made The Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Openworked in White Ceramic, And A Few Lucky People Already Have One

You might have seen it circulating online. Here's the full story.

Introducing: Omega Releases A White Ceramic Seamaster 300M For Milano Cortina 2026

A frosty new design rounds out a trio of winter Olympics editions from the brand.

First Look - The White Ceramic Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Milano Cortina 2026

For the 32nd time in its (long) history and since 1932, Omega will be the Official Timekeeper of the Olympics. Indeed, the 2026 Olympic Winter Games will be held from February 6th to 22nd in Milano Cortina, Italy, and the Swiss watch brand will record all 116 events across 16 sporting disciplines. To celebrate its […]

First Look - The Zenith Defy Skyline Chronograph in Black Ceramic

Introduced in 2022, the Defy Skyline series quickly evolved into one of Zenith’s core collections, to include time-only, skeletonised, and tourbillon-regulated models, all distinguished by their faceted geometry and star-patterned dials. The launch of the Defy Skyline Chronograph in 2024 finally united the brand’s most iconic complication with the collection’s distinctive angular aesthetic. Now, following […]

Introducing - Artya Unveils Exclusive Watch with Quadricoloured Sapphire Bezel for Dubai Watch Week 2025

Artya, the brand created by Yvan Arpa, is never shy to break the rules and to create watches with impressive character. Even though recent models have toned things down a bit, specifically the sleek and organic Purity Wavy or Luminity Wavy, the family-run business is always answering the call for innovation and creativity. As part […]

What Is A Fluted Bezel On A Watch?

If you’re new to the watch-collecting hobby, you’ve undoubtedly seen or heard references to watches with fluted bezels, but what does that description actually mean? Are fluted bezels a feature of sports watches or dress watches, of watches for men or for ladies? Are they designed for practical use or purely as an aesthetic touch? As is common in the world of watches, the answers to all of these questions are not as simple as you might think.  Before getting into the fluted type in particular, let’s get really basic and review what a watch’s bezel is and what it’s for. As we explore in more detail here, a bezel is the front part of a watch’s case (often but not always ring-shaped) that frames the dial and secures the crystal. Bezels can be made of the same material as the case middle and/or the caseback, but can also be made of a different material. They can also be thin or wide; stationary or built to rotate in either one direction or both; purely decorative (i.e., set with diamonds) or utilitarian in nature (i.e., inscribed with a scale for some type of calculation). Fluting is defined as “a groove or set of grooves forming a surface decoration,” so a fluted bezel is one that features this type of grooved or ribbed texture on its top surface. Initially, as with most every element of a watch, a fluted bezel design was designed with a practical purpose in mind: the grooved surface made it easier for a watchmaker to screw the bezel tightly into the case to...

Introducing - A Smooth Bezel on a Hanhart…? Meet the New 417 ES Mocha Flyback Date

Hanhart’s roots run deep in the history of mechanical chronographs. Founded in 1882 in Germany’s Black Forest, Hanhart became a mid-20th-century reference for timing instruments. Its stopwatches and pilot chronographs set benchmarks for robustness, legibility, and ergonomics, a legacy carried forward by today’s collections, most notably, the 417 ES. First developed for the German armed […]

Introducing - The Yema Navygraf Pearl CMM.20 Flaunts a Mother-of-Pearl Dial and Bezel

French brand Yema got a foothold in the watch world with its rugged tool watches, exemplified by models like the mighty 300 water-resistant Superman skin diver of 1963. Proud of its French roots, Yema secured strategic alliances with the French Navy (Marine Nationale) to develop military tool watches. Based on its 1970s Navygraf dive watch, […]

Tudor Black Bay Ceramic - Another Unexpected Release from Tudor

Teddy Baldassarre is an authorized luxury watch retailer of brands like TUDOR, OMEGA, IWC, Grand Seiko, Breitling, Blancpain, Glashütte Original, Zenith, Longines, ORIS, MIDO, Tissot, Hamilton, NOMOS Glashütte, Baume & Mercier, and more.

Omega Expands the Dark Side of the Moon Legacy with Seven New Ceramic Speedmasters

First Look - The Extroverted & Eye-Catching Hublot Spirit of Big Bang Orange Ceramic

Almost a decade after the Big Bang exploded on the watch scene in 2005 – the paragon of an oversized, high-octane sports watch showcasing an unusual fusion of materials – Hublot introduced the Spirit of Big Bang. As its name suggests, the new collection captured the “spirit” of its forebear but replaced the octagonal porthole-shaped […]

Introducing - Formex Dresses its Bestseller in Full-Ceramic with the New Essence Ceramica

Formex, founded in 2000, is renowned for its rugged action watches. The brand’s bestselling Essence, a sporty, all-terrain model with sharp case architecture, a patented suspension system, and COSC-certified movements, made its debut in 2018 and was refreshed in 2021 with a wider range of dial colours. Marking its 25th anniversary, Formex released its first […]

echo/neutra Introduces the Averau42 Collection, New Watches with a Hybrid Ceramic-Titanium Case

One of the real highlights of being involved in our Windup events year to year is getting to know brand owners and founders, and periodically getting a little peek at what’s to come. More and more often, brands come to our events not just with watches in their current catalog, but with early samples of watches they’re planning for the future to show prospective customers, members of the media, and the Worn & Wound team. I won’t lie: it’s a nice perk of being on the inside. A few months ago during the Chicago show, the team at echo/neutra pulled some really exciting stuff out of a bag that was not quite ready for prying eyes. The new Averau42 collection, which at launch consists of a pair of watches combining titanium and ceramic construction, is an exciting next step for a brand that we’ve been interested in for some time.  The heart of these watches is what echo/neutra calls the TiFrame construction. This is an idea we’ve seen a handful of times from other brands, usually bigger brands, in the recent past. These watches are made with an internal titanium case, or frame, that protects the movement and offers tensile strength that ceramic and other alternative materials lack. The outer layer is black ceramic, which provides a virtually scratch proof surface and a moody aesthetic vibe for these watches that fits in nicely with the design codes the brand has established over the past several years. This type of construction, in addition to making the most of the ...

First Look - The Earthen Company Summit Collection of Accessible Ceramic Watches

Earthen Company is a new brand for 2025, based in Hong Kong and founded by watch enthusiasts. As co-founder Johnathan Chan (also one of the co-founders of the Horology Club) puts it, “We’re collectors and designers first, not watchmakers.” The emphasis is on modern materials with a retro vibe, so the team designed a trio […]

The Moser Pioneer Returns with a Dive Bezel (and NFT Connection)

H. Moser & Cie.’s only dive watch returns as the Pioneer “Elements of Time”, the result of an unexpected, but not unprecedented, collaboration with Azuki, an anime-inspired NFT, and American retailer The 1916 Company. Unsurprisingly given the digital nature of the collaboration, the watches will only be available online via raffle from Azuki. Representing the four elements of earth, lightning, fire and water, Elements of Time features engraved fumé dials in four colourways. Each is limited to 24 watches in Pioneer Centre Seconds format, along with one unique Pioneer tourbillon per colour. All variants are titanium, matched with bracelet with the amenities you’d expect from a diver, including a micro-adjust clasp. Initial Thoughts While a new Pioneer with a rotating bezel would normally be a major release, you won’t find Elements of Time on Moser’s website. That’s because it’s a collaboration with Azuki, a non-fungible token (NFT). Azuki is Japanese for “red bean”, but Azuki is basically anime-style digital art on the blockchain. But these are real watches – they can be collected at The 1916 Company’s physical stores – and more notably, sport of the most interesting fumé dials from Moser in a while. This isn’t Moser’s first foray into the Web 3.0 world. Back in 2022, the brand launched the Endeavour Centre Seconds Genesis, a watch that was essentially a physical QR code. The timing wasn’t the best as it debuted just as the NFT bubble popped...

A History and Guide - How to Use a Dive Bezel

John Scott Haldane had a problem. Britain’s Royal Navy had commissioned the Scottish physiologist to find a solution for a unique problem facing their divers: decompression. Known since the mid-19th century, decompression sickness (DCS) posed a serious risk for divers and laborers working in pressurized environments, such as caissons. It was his job to develop a set of decompression tables for safe diving operations. It boils down to how gases act under pressure. When breathing a gas mixture at depth - for the sake of simplicity, we will say compressed air, or approximately 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with the rest being inert gases - the oxygen is used up by the body, and the nitrogen is absorbed into the bloodstream. This build-up will dissolve as it is effectively off-gassed, as it does when each of us breathes here on the surface. Enter pressure. Should a diver undergo a rapid change in pressure, such as by ascending too quickly, the nitrogen will separate from the blood and form bubbles in the tissues and joints. The resulting pain has a habit of contorting its victims, giving DCS its more readily-known nickname of “the bends.” John Scott Haldane had a problem. Britain’s Royal Navy had commissioned the Scottish physiologist to find a solution for a unique problem facing their divers: decompression. Known since the mid-19th century, decompression sickness (DCS) posed a serious risk for divers and laborers working in pressurized environments, such as caisso...

Introducing - The New Girard-Perregaux Laureato Skeleton Aston Martin in Black Ceramic

The symbiotic relationship between mechanical watches and motorsports shows no signs of waning. When Girard-Perregaux was in the hands of Italian CEO Luigi Macaluso, a former rally driver, the brand forged a partnership with Ferrari in 1994, lasting ten years. In 2021, with Patrick Pruniaux at the helm, Girard-Perregaux became the official watch partner of […]

Introducing: IWC's TOP GUN Pilot's Chronographs Go Sky Blue With Two New 'Miramar' Models In Ceramic And Steel

Sky blue for TOP GUN. A match made in the heavens.

De Rijke & Co.’s Final Miffy Moonphase is Here, in a New White Ceramic Case

One of the things I really enjoy about covering microbrands and small independents is seeing how young brands develop in unexpected ways over time. My first exposure to De Rijke & Co. was through Zach Weiss’s review of their Amalfi 1S back in 2020. At that point, the brand’s calling card was their trick case design that allowed the wearer to easily rotate the dial for a better viewpoint while driving, as well as customized design options so clients could effectively create their own unique version of the watch. This “gentleman driver’s” watch, as they referred to it, remains quite appealing, and the case of course is still a part of their collection. In no way, however, could it have predicted the success the brand would find making watches featuring the “Miffy” character, a staple of Dutch children’s books since the 1950s.  Over the last three years, De Rijke & Co. has released several Miffy themed watches that go well beyond simple character dials. The Miffy motif has been used to experiment with bold colors, lume, and different expressions of the moonphase complication. These watches are whimsical, a lot of fun, and quite far removed, in my opinion, from the earlier Amalfi pieces, and it’s fascinating to consider how the brand got to this point.  Today, they’ve unveiled what is said to be the final Miffy watch. According to the brand, the new White Ceramic Miffy Moonphase has been in the works for three years. It is, it turns out, quite complicated...

Introducing - The Final Edition In De Rijke & Co’s Miffy Moonphase Collection Comes in White Ceramic

The unique story of Miffy and De Rijke & Co starts back in 2022, when Dutchman Laurens de Rijke, founder of his own watchmaking company, launched something very unexpected: the Miffy Moonphase. The iconic Dutch cartoon bunny is known and loved the world over, and carefully protected by a foundation honouring Dick Bruna’s (Miffy’s creator) […]

IWC Debuts Its First Le Petit Prince Watch In Ceramic

Introducing - The Blue Ceramic IWC Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar Tourbillon Le Petit Prince

More than 80 years after its initial release, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel Le Petit Prince or The Little Prince remains as popular as ever. As one of the most active brands in the field of pilot’s watches, and knowing Saint-Exupéry’s career as an aviator, IWC has long partnered with The Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Youth Foundation […]

Doxa Adds a Steel Bezel to the SUB 200 Diver

Doxa added a GMT to their collection for the first time in years to much fanfare recently (we covered it here). This watch got quite a bit of press and stirred considerable interest within the enthusiast community, but to my mind it was only the second best watch the brand showed us when we met with them in Geneva last month (that’s second out of two, just to be clear). I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but I’m a little over the whole “put a GMT on it” approach to product development that the industry has been stuck in for the last few years. Do we really need the ability to track two or more time zones on every watch? And should we really be doing it with movements that perform this function almost by accident and are nearly impossible to use correctly if you’re actually traveling? I’m trying not to be a hater, really I am, but every time I see a new GMT equipped watch that’s just a riff on an existing diver or chronograph, as if a GMT complication is just an extra side on a barbecue platter, I ask myself what it is that we’re doing here, really.  A new version of the Doxa SUB 200 was the other watch Doxa was showing in Geneva last month, although it was embargoed until last week, so I couldn’t come out of that meeting with the blistering hot take that it actually makes a lot more sense as a watch than the SUB 250T GMT, which to me feels like something ChatGPT might invent if you asked it to think of Doxa watches that don’t yet exist. This SUB 200 i...