WristBuzz
Blancpain Villeret Ultraplate 38mm: Smaller Case, Softer Dials, Better Proportions
Blancpain shrinks its ultra-thin dress watch to 38mm and debuts a first-ever sunburst salmon dial for the Villeret line
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WristBuzz
Blancpain shrinks its ultra-thin dress watch to 38mm and debuts a first-ever sunburst salmon dial for the Villeret line
Teddy Baldassarre Videos
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.
Two Broke Watch Snobs
The new Farer Racing Chronograph pairs a hand-wound Sellita movement with 1960s racing watch design cues across three colorways.
Monochrome
When the Paris-based brand Baltic released the Peter Auto Tricompax in 2022, it was well received by enthusiasts. The watch looked straight back at classic racing chronographs and carried a strong vintage feel. This 1960s-inspired limited-edition watch fit neatly into Baltic’s chronograph story, which began in 2017 with the neo-vintage Bicompax 001 and later became […]
Fratello
Sometimes, as a watch enthusiast, you just connect with a brand. Fears is such a brand for me. I find this revived English indie watch company a prime example of how to establish yourself in a slightly higher segment than most. As much as I appreciate the company from a distance, I had spent little […] Visit Don’t Sleep On These Cushions — Hands-On With Three Fears Brunswick Models to read the full article.
Hodinkee
What We Know Today, Blancpain has downsized its ultra-thin Villeret Ultraplate dress watch, with new options in 38mm for greater wearability. The previous 40mm options of the 'Golden Hour' series, which I covered last October, remain, but the 38mm options are going to be much more appealing all around as proper dress watches. The case still remains incredibly thin, especially for a self-winding watch, at 8.35mm, but the 38mm downsizing now offers a short 43.35mm lug-to-lug measurement for small wrists and those who prefer the more traditional proportion of how a dress watch should look on the wrist. Here, four options are presented within these new measurements: three with stainless steel cases, and one in 18K red gold. The dial design continues the visual update introduced last October in the Villeret series, with simplified Roman numerals, the applied "JB" logo at 12 o'clock (standing for Jehan-Jacques Blancpain, who the brand credits as the founder), slim but still lumed leaf hands, and a skeletonized rotor. In stainless steel, there are three dial colors available. Salmon is a first for the Villeret collection, with a copper-hued dial paired with anthracite-coated 18K gold numerals. My favorite of the lineup, the Villeret Ultraplate featuring a warm champagne-hued dial with 18K yellow gold numerals set within a steel case with a green nubuck strap, will be offered as a boutique exclusive. More classic pairings of white gold numerals in a steel case and red gold numeral...
Monochrome
Akhor is a new Geneva indie brand carving a niche for high-end watchmaking, poetic design and top-end finishing. A collective project founded by Anissa Bader in 2025, Akhor is built around its floating dial architecture with a patented two-disc construction by sister company Clamax, a Geneva-based component and micromechanics manufacturer. Writing the next chapter, the […]
SJX Watches
Independent watchmaker Sylvain Pinaud has introduced the Tourbillon, a watch that looks a lot like the brand’s sophomore Origine, but is in fact entirely different. The apparent similarity conceals an all-new calibre, which features a lively 30-second tourbillon front and centre. Mr Pinaud’s most ambitious project yet will be made in three 10-piece limited editions: one in titanium, and two in platinum. Initial thoughts Sylvain Pinaud is one of the few contemporary independent watchmakers who launched his eponymous brand with a complication before going back to basics with a time-only model. Launched in 2022, the Origine was well-suited to the prevailing taste for well-finished time-only watches. With Origine production in the rearview, Mr Pinaud has moved back in the direction of additional complexity with his first tourbillon. For fans of Sylvain Pinaud — and artisanal watchmaking in general — the well-executed Tourbillon leaves little room for complaint. That said, it’s liable to be criticised for the simple fast that it looks a lot like the Origine. Indeed, the two watches could hardly look more similar — a fact that limits the Tourbillon’s ‘shock and awe’ factor. At launch, I noted that the Tourbillon costs more than double that of the time-only Origine. That’s arguably a big ask relative to the additional complexity of the tourbillon regulator, but the cost basis is probably a moot point given collector appetite for independent watchmaking and the...
Worn & Wound
Hamilton recently kicked off its America 250 Roadshow in Charleston, South Carolina, but this past weekend it brought its traveling pop-up experience to Hudson Yards in NYC. This gathering brought together watch enthusiasts, curious passersby, and a healthy dose of military-inspired history. The traveling activation celebrates the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States while spotlighting one of Hamilton’s most enduring collections: the Khaki Field. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1892, Hamilton’s story is deeply intertwined with American history. From keeping the nation’s railroads running on time to supplying over one million timepieces and marine chronometers to Allied forces during World War II, the brand’s reputation has long been built on precision and reliability. That heritage lives on today in the Khaki Field collection, which served as the centerpiece of this weekend’s Hudson Yards experience. Visitors were able to explore displays tracing the history of the Khaki Field line while getting hands-on with the new Khaki Field Mechanical 36mm America 250 Edition. Produced in a limited run of 1,776 pieces, the anniversary watch pays tribute to Hamilton’s military roots with vintage-inspired proportions and styling. Beyond the watches themselves, the pop-up offered plenty of opportunities to explore. A Hamilton watchmaker was on hand throughout the weekend, giving attendees an up-close look at the movements powering the brand’s mechanical watche...
Monochrome
One of the most distinctive indie brands on the scene today, it’s impossible to mistake a De Bethune watch. Some of the signature aesthetic clues, developed by master watchmaker and co-founder Denis Flageollet, are heat-treated titanium components and random guilloché patterns. As a counterweight to the more futuristic and flagship DB28 family, the more classical […]
SJX Watches
Girard-Perregaux (GP) closed out the Laureato’s 50th anniversary last year by launching the Laureato Three Gold Bridges, 18 years after the ‘three gold bridges’ format was first applied to the brand’s signature sports watch. Available with our without a diamond-set bezel, the Laureato Three Gold Bridges signals the brands emergent ambitions. Initial thoughts Few brands can lay claim to their own distinctive movement architecture, and GP is right to make the ‘three gold bridges’ format a pillar of the brand’s resurgence. While the brand did not have a monopoly of this format in the pocket watch era, the appealing architecture has been synonymous with GP since the formula was first applied to a wristwatch in the 1990s. To look at the Laureato Three Gold Bridges is to understand how a mechanical watch works, and that’s a key aspect of its appeal. The layout clearly separates the major functions, with the power source, the going train, and the regulating organ supported by dedicated bridges front and back. The sporty Laureato case and sturdy H-link bracelet are secondary to the spectacular movement, but the hard-wearing stainless steel construction does a good job of making the haute horlogerie calibre wearable on a daily basis, even if the 30 m water resistance rating trails competitors. The gem-set model illustrated is priced at CHF219,000, while the unadorned variant with a simpler white gold bezel retails for CHF162,000. This pricing slightly undercuts tha...
Hodinkee
What We Know Amida keeps finding new ways to update and reinvent the classic Digitrend driving watch. When we last heard from the brand, they had fashioned a model inspired by the NASA space shuttle missions, a timepiece that demonstrated the range of design and development possibilities of the Digitrend format, which first debuted in the pre-shuttle era way back in 1976 at Basel. Now, it seems, Amida has seen the light. Or rather, it's seen the way to add luminescence material to an open-worked version of the digital jump hour timepiece with the Digitrend OSII Black. Featuring an open sapphire hood showing the DLC-coated workings of the movement and Amida's in-house developed jump hour module, the new model uses an LRD or 'light reflecting display' utilizing prismatic technology that illuminates the digital numerals via Super-LumiNova, for the first time. The Digitrend has never been a watch for everyone. It's quirky, and its time-reading display is unusual, to say the least. But the addition of lume certainly adds to its functionality and represents a welcome upgrade for this new edition that is limited to 150 pieces and goes on sale today on Amida's website. The brand and co-founder Matthieu Allègre say the ongoing improvements, revisions, and tweaks to the Digitrend model line shouldn't be seen as merely more refined or robust versions of the original. Rather, they're designing and producing the model as it would have evolved had the original brand not been am...
Teddy Baldassarre
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.
Monochrome
When Amida returned in 2024, it brought back one of the most distinctive watch designs of the 1970s. The Digitrend, originally launched in 1976, stood apart from conventional watches with its horizontal digital display viewed through a prism, giving it the appearance of a futuristic LED watch. The concept was faithfully revived in 2025 by […]
Fratello
The Amida Digitrend is one of those out-of-the-box watches that always gets me. The combination of its unconventional shape, prism display, and jump-hour complication makes it unlike any other watch. That was already true of the 1976 original Amida Digitrend. Designer Matthieu Allègre and Depancel founder Clément Meynier relaunched the Digitrend in 2024 and tried […] Visit Get “Tunnel Vision” With The New Amida Digitrend OSII Black to read the full article.
Fratello
Welcome back to another episode of Fratello On Air! This week, we talk about car watches, a curious subgenre within our hobby. Sure, the automobile industry is massive and has an equally huge fan base, but collaborations between watch and car brands often misfire. This draws us into a conversation about what we think of […] Visit Fratello On Air: The Curious Case Of Car Watches to read the full article.
Fratello
Every year, I get excited to pick my favorite summer watches. It allows me to choose ones that are a bit more colorful and wild than the watches I would normally consider for a list of favorites. The idea is simple: the Fratello editors pick their favorite summer watch in five price brackets, ranging from […] Visit The Best Summer Watches: Jorg’s Picks From Traska, Aquastar, Nomos, Zenith, And Rolex (Again) to read the full article.
SJX Watches
Chanel christened its watch collection for the year “Coco Game”, a theme that informs the pixellated video game motifs found on some watches and also the flagship creation that is the endgame as such things go. The Chessboard is self descriptive, but it is much more than an 8×8 board with 32 chess pieces. A one-off creation that is already sold, the Chessboard is impressive by the numbers alone: 1.5 kg of gold, 110 carats of diamonds, and a retail price of over US$4 million. But where is the watch you might ask? There are two: each of the queens is actually a pendant watch with a tiny dial on its base, and the set is delivered with a single chain for the winner to wear a pendant watch. The queen takes the form of Coco Chanel dressed in the brand’s signature tweed suit Initial thoughts I’ve always been a fan of Chanel’s impossibly extravagant objet d’art, which in past years have ranged from a musical automaton clock to a planetarium-clock. This year’s one-off creation trumps them all in scale, complexity, decoration, and of course price. In tangible terms, the Chessboard is clearly a trophy for the home or office, or a game board for a wealthy chess fan. Ridiculously lavish board games and toys have a long history — jewellers like Faberge and Cartier made such items in times past. In fact, some of Faberge’s fabled Imperial Easter Eggs contained surprises that were actually tiny toys. The Chessboard, however, is distinctively 21st century in both material...
Worn & Wound
Citizen is one of those brands that conjures a certain image in the mind of a watch collector as soon as you utter the brand name. The watches, for the most part, are pretty ubiquitous, and the brand name is easily recognized by most people who have ever shopped for a watch at a department store, or noticed an advertisement in a magazine. Which is to say, they are huge, and make watches that are largely appealing to a broad swath of the public, which in turn means that many of them are affordable or at least accessible. But it would be a mistake to diminish Citizen as simply a brand that produces affordable mall watches. Their size means that not only do they play a significant role in the mass market and enthusiast watch spaces, but that they have the resources to operate at the higher end as well. My favorite example of this, by far, is Citizen’s “The Citizen” line of watches. We’ve covered these many times before (I reviewed one here), and while they are somewhat awkwardly named, they do a great job of distilling with I think Citizen really is at their best, marrying competent manufacturing, their own Eco-Drive technology, and some cultural references to Japan that actually make sense in the context of the watch and how it works. As part of the brand’s ongoing celebration of the 50th anniversary of Eco-Drive, Citizen has just announced a new limited edition version of The Citizen, reference AQ4094-58L. It follows the format of many of the previous iteratio...
Monochrome
The new Titan Edge UltraSlim Mechanical isn’t a new idea. Let’s just say it is the next step in a story that started over 20 years ago. Back in 2002, Titan launched the quartz Edge, a watch that became famous for being incredibly thin. Nearly two decades later came the Edge Mechanical, proving the brand […]
Hodinkee
I really didn't need the Baltic Heures du Monde, and there were numerous reasons why. I've become inextricably associated with my "Pepsi" GMT-Master II (I always kind of hoped I'd be "that guy" to be tied to a cool watch—be careful what you wish for, I guess), so much so that at our recent community meet-up, someone said they didn't recognize me without the Rolex on my wrist. I wear it most days, though I'm trying to break free of complacency since I do have a lot of other nice watches. But every time I travel, it's on my wrist as I step on the plane, so a worldtimer was just about the last thing I needed. And yet, together with my friend and our former Talking Watches guest, Adam Victor, I picked up a Heures du Monde in labradorite. There were three versions with different stones for the dial, and this specific model, with a darker, more muted color, felt most wearable and classic, so it felt like a good fit. We weren't the only ones who jumped on the opportunity, as they also sold out immediately, which meant my hands-on had to wait. Now, Baltic is taking pre-orders again, with the first deliveries slated for October. This was something they telegraphed coming during the initial release—the only difference is that the new ones aren't numbered out of 200, which means you can pick one up if you missed it the first time. So, why get one? Well, because. First of all, I'm under no illusions that everyone is lucky enough to get or afford a Rolex GMT. It was a dream of mine...
Time+Tide
TAG Heuer tees up its most golf-focused Connected watch yet, this time with a full-blown TaylorMade ecosystem to back it up.
Fratello
The dive watch remains one of the most compelling categories in watchmaking. While luxury brands continue to push prices well into five-figure territory, there are still plenty of genuinely capable dive watches available for less than €500. Better yet, many of them aren’t merely dive-style watches. They offer proper water resistance, robust movements, and the […] Visit What Are 10 Of The Best Dive Watches Under €500? to read the full article.
Two Broke Watch Snobs
After years of hands-on watch reviews, these are the field watches we think make the most sense for first-time mechanical buyers.
Monochrome
As we have sort of halfway circumnavigated our annual lap around the sun, we come back to that age-old question on every watch enthusiast’s mind: what to wear during our summer holiday travels?! And I’m sure you all recognise the thought of what you’re actually planning on doing during your mid-year adventures. Are you staying […]
Two Broke Watch Snobs
Should you buy one luxury dive watch or build a five-watch affordable collection? We break down the real ownership tradeoffs using watches we’ve reviewed hands-on.
Worn & Wound
“Watches, Stories, and Gear” is a roundup of our favorite content, watch or otherwise, from around the internet. Here, we support other creators, explore interesting content that inspires us, and put a spotlight on causes we believe in. Oh, and any gear we happen to be digging on this week. We love gear. The Biggest Box Office Flop Of All Time Look, I’m not one to take pleasure in another person’s failure. Lord knows I’ve had my fair share of them (for example: I once sold timeshares after dropping out of law school – go ahead and laugh, my schadenfreude-inclined readers). But even still, when it comes to a flop this massive…well, brother, even I’m going to take notice. According to SlashFilm, the biggest flop in Hollywood title now belongs to Desert Warrior, Rupert Wyatt’s historical action epic starring Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley, and Sharlto Copley. The film reportedly cost $150 million to make and earned just $742,066 worldwide, bringing back roughly 0.5% of its production budget in theaters. With very little post-theatrical marketing, I doubt this will get any big wins anytime soon. The best Wyatt et al. can hope for is a few royalty checks coming from those big $5 DVD bins at Wal-Mart, if you ask me. The Transformers: The Movie Getting Theatrical Re-Release I wasn’t big into cars growing up (surprise, surprise), but I was big into animals. Because of this, the only Transformers I liked was the short-lived Beast Wars from 1996, when ...
Deployant
Panerai introduces the Submersible Navy SEALs PAM01738: a 44mm steel tool watch fitted with the in-house P.980 calibre, a two-colour lume system with expanded Super-LumiNova coverage, and water resistance to 500 metres. The following post is based on press release information. Editorial commentary appears in italics. New: Panerai Submersible Navy SEALs PAM01738 The Panerai SubmersibleRead More
Fratello
Hanhart introduces a new fire-service-inspired limited edition, and the Thermosphere is not shy about its source of inspiration. The 42mm watch is based on the Aquasphere series, but the bezel swaps diving orientation for breathing-apparatus monitoring, with markers designed around the time checks used during firefighting operations. That makes this more than a fancy colorway […] Visit It’s Getting Hot In Here, So Take Off… No… Strap On Your Hanhart Thermosphere! to read the full article.
Time+Tide
A very modern take on the integrated bracelet watch that brings top-end engineering to the wrist with a strong statement.
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