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Results for Neo-Vintage

3,109 articles · 127 videos found · page 56 of 108

Vulcain Continues Revival With New Chronograph 1970’s Worn & Wound
Vulcain Continues Revival May 19, 2023

Vulcain Continues Revival With New Chronograph 1970’s

Vulcain has been around in one form or another since the mid-1800s. A few ownership changes, some rocky years, a shutdown, and two eventual revivals make up the long and rocky road that is the Vulcain brand. If you’ve heard of the brand before, it’s most likely that the Cricket is the watch you’re familiar with. The Cricket gets the most attention, being worn on the wrists of American Presidents and having a unique alarm complication that made it stand out from the pack. While the Cricket is great, there’s another watch that doesn’t get quite as much attention, but definitely deserves it, and that’s the Chronograph 1970’s. This new release from Vulcain is a true-to-form recreation of a watch they released back in the 1970s, right down to the spot-on vintage proportions. Let’s dig in and take a closer look at this charming 38mm chronograph from Vulcain. $2781 Vulcain Continues Revival With New Chronograph 1970’s Case Stainless Steel Movement Sellita SW510 M BH Dial Black on Black, semi-gloss sunray Lume Yes, hands and markers Lens Double domed sapphire with AR coating Strap Black leather Water Resistance 5 ATM Dimensions 38x46mm Thickness 12.4mm Lug Width 20mm Crown Push/Pull Warranty 2yr Price $2781 Case Vulcain’s vintage proportions and style are spot-on here. Measuring 38mm wide by 12.4mm thick (a hefty portion of that taken up by the double domed sapphire crystal), the Chronograph wears like a dream. It’s not just about the dimensions, because the ...

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Watches, Stories, & Gear: Getting Shifty with the 2024 Acura Integra Type S, The Slick and Affordable FALCAM Maglink Camera Strap, New LEGO Technic Model Worthy of Le Mans, & Playing with FYRE All Over Again Worn & Wound
Apr 15, 2023

Watches, Stories, & Gear: Getting Shifty with the 2024 Acura Integra Type S, The Slick and Affordable FALCAM Maglink Camera Strap, New LEGO Technic Model Worthy of Le Mans, & Playing with FYRE All Over Again

“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. Share your story ideas or interesting finds with us by emailing tcalara@wornandwound.com Header Image Via: Acura The 2024 Acura Integra Type S Lives Up To The Shifty Hatchback’s Name Via Car and Driver When Acura came bursting onto the automotive scene in 1986, it did so by simultaneously debuting the Integra, a shifty compact hatchback highlighted by its athletic styling and signature pop-up headlight design. Most of us in the office and car enthusiasts alike however, can specifically identify with a particular Integra, one that ushered in a new era of performance in ’97 with the third-generation of their sports hatchback and a cult-classic; the Integra Type-R. The Type-R would go on to create its own legend, dominating the podiums time and time again at the SCCA World Challenge Touring Car Championship. Via Car and Driver When Acura reintroduced the Acura Integra this year, it fell hard and flat amongst the enthusiast crowd. A common problem nowadays with all automotive brands reviving older models, the new base model Integra looked like your average sedan on the road and was absent of any wow-factor when it came to its performance and aesthetic. That’s not the...

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Watches, Stories, & Gear: The LEGO Icons Classic Land Rover Defender 90, NASA’s New Spacesuit, & The WESN Bornas Knife Worn & Wound
Mar 18, 2023

Watches, Stories, & Gear: The LEGO Icons Classic Land Rover Defender 90, NASA’s New Spacesuit, & The WESN Bornas Knife

“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. Share your story ideas or interesting finds with us by emailing tcalara@wornandwound.com Header Image Via: LEGO LEGO Icons Classic Land Rover Defender 90 To celebrate Land Rover’s 75th Anniversary, LEGO has announced a 2,336 piece Land Rover Defender 90 set as a part of their Icons Classic collection. There’s lots to love about this one. The LEGO Land Rover Defender 90 comes in its familiar straight-line, boxy body adorned with the classic green and white top. The model will also come along with a roof rack, engine snorkel, offroad front bumper, and all the miscellaneous gear your LR Defender would ever need for its next overland adventure. Needless to say, this will look perfect on the shelf right next to the LEGO Land Rover Defender Technic set. Another cool touch to all of this is a video that features explorers, Roha Moharrak and Aldo Kane as they attempt to race to “The Hardest to Reach LEGO Store in the World” in their very own Land Rover Defenders – Moharrak, the first Saudi woman to ever summit Mt. Everest in the classic yellow Camel Trophy Defender and Kane, an extreme & remote locations expert trekking around in a no-fuss Defender 110. And once at t...

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The 90’s Are Back! - Check Out These New G-Shocks In The Windup Watch Shop Worn & Wound
Mar 8, 2023

The 90’s Are Back! - Check Out These New G-Shocks In The Windup Watch Shop

The 90s Sporty Collection from G-Shock is a line of watches that pay homage to the iconic designs and colorways of the 1990s. This collection is a throwback to the era of neon colors, oversized clothing, and popular sports like basketball and skateboarding. The coloring of these models is the same as the popular coloring of the G-SHOCK DW001, which went on sale in 1994. The three base models of this lineup are the standard DW5600, the front button DW6900Y, and the Analog-Digital GA110Y. These cool designs provide a choice of variations that accentuate any style or fashion. The 90s Sporty Collection from G-Shock is a line of watches that pay homage to the iconic designs and colorways of the 1990s. This collection is a throwback to the era of neon colors, oversized clothing, and popular sports like basketball and skateboarding. The coloring of these models is the same as the popular coloring of the G-SHOCK DW001, which went on sale in 1994. The three base models of this lineup are the standard DW5600, the front button DW6900Y, and the Analog-Digital GA110Y. These cool designs provide a choice of variations that accentuate any style or fashion. The post The 90’s Are Back! – Check Out These New G-Shocks In The Windup Watch Shop appeared first on Worn & Wound.

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Hands-On: Love At First Sight with the Lorca Model No.1 GMT Worn & Wound
Casio nally pause Feb 24, 2023

Hands-On: Love At First Sight with the Lorca Model No.1 GMT

As a self-proclaimed watch guy, I’ve developed a natural habit for watch spotting in the wild. It doesn’t matter if I’m in the midst of a routine trip to my local cafe or seated in my designated row as I observe the rest of the passengers board the plane. It’s also not limited to being out and about, as I’ve been known in my household to occasionally pause a movie if I spot something interesting on a character’s wrist. Needless to say, my watch-radar is always on. There are a few things that actually set this “radar” off. But for the most part, it’s design recognition. You know what you’re looking at, even when you just catch a glimpse of the watch from across the room. All the classic models and references have this going for them. A couple months back however, I must admit, I was stumped. A gentleman strolled into our Worn & Wound office and was looking to chat with someone from our editorial team. He walked into our headquarters, so surely he should have a watch on, right? So mid-conversation, I glanced over when the opportunity presented itself, and just visible outside of a denim shirt cuff, layered with a stone gray tweed overcoat, was a watch that I thought I recognized.But the more I looked, the more I got confused … and intrigued. “Definitely vintage,” I thought. But was it an IWC? A Universal Geneve? It was none of the above – it was actually something totally new. Turns out the gentleman visiting that day was Jesse Marchant, a New Yor...

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Review: the new Longines Spirit Zulu Time Deployant
Longines Spirit Zulu Time DEPLOYANT Jun 11, 2022

Review: the new Longines Spirit Zulu Time

The GMT function is likely the most useful complication on mechanical timepieces, right after the date. While some may say the perpetual calendar is useful too, the effort to keep it running all the time or adjusting the date everytime to keep it updated is too much of a hassle. Chronographs on the other hand are not useful either for day to day tasks. The GMT however, is has many modern corporate slave applications, especially for those who travel or work with teams in different timezones. It is also the best multi timezone configuration that does not throw errors like the world timer, which becomes erroneous under daylight saving cycles and are also particularly hard to read.

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Hands-On: The Alto ART 02 Hodinkee
Cartier Oct 27, 2026

Hands-On: The Alto ART 02

Only a few degrees of separation separate the worlds of watches and cars. A passion for vintage motorsports first brought together Alto founder Thibaud Guittard and Raphaël Abeillon, now the brand's creative director, who spent a decade designing watches at Cartier. Contemporary art is perhaps slightly more removed from watches, but it's an inspiration and theme that has run through most of Alto's early pieces, particularly the limited-edition collaboration of its ART 01 with renowned French sculptor Bernar Vernet. Now Alto is going (just) a touch more mainstream and slightly less avant-garde with the launch of its ART 02, an important piece for the nascent marque that heralds the first watch in its permanent collection. The ART 02 continues the themes and design of the ART 01while refining and updating the original piece at a more approachable price. Available in an initial run of about 150 pieces in Grade 5 Titanium with a new matching bracelet, the watch signals that Alto is ready to play in the big show, and it debuted at Geneva Watch Days 2026 alongside more than 70 other brands. It was my favorite new watch of the show.  It's damn hard to stand out in the crowded integrated-bracelet sports watch category, but Alto has done this from the start and has furthered its distinctive design elements in the ART 02. Almost no one presents a faceted sapphire glass like Alto does. Severe angles and beveled edges make the crystal a standout feature for the Alto 02. There isn't ...

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Hands-on - Wren’s Unexpected Take on the Integrated Sports Watch, The Vessel Monochrome
Wren Oct 26, 2026

Hands-on - Wren’s Unexpected Take on the Integrated Sports Watch, The Vessel

If you’ve recently been following the buzzing micro-brand scene, you’ve probably heard about NYC-based brand Wren. Founded in 2024 by Craig Karger, who’s also behind Wrist Enthusiast, the brand has, for now, exclusively produced vintage-inspired dive watches. And yet, only two years after its creation, the brand has decided to revise its design language entirely and […]

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Breitling, at Long Last, Adds Manually Wound Navitimers to the Core Collection Worn & Wound
Breitling Oct 22, 2026

Breitling, at Long Last, Adds Manually Wound Navitimers to the Core Collection

Breitling fills a big hole in their Navitimer collection today with the release of a pair of watches that feel like concerted efforts at engaging the watch enthusiast community. The new Navitimer B09 Chronograph 41 and the Navitimer B02 Chronograph 41 Cosmonaute are not limited editions, but part of the brand’s core collection, their presence there will surely please a wide swath of longtime Breitling fans, particularly those interested in vintage Breitling, and classic chronographs more generally.  It’s somewhat hard to believe, but until today, Breitling did not have a manually wound Navitimer in their permanent collection. The hand wound B09 movement used in the Navitimer has been used in a handful of limited and special releases in the past, but it feels like the brand is really plugging a gap here with a manually wound version of what is arguably their most iconic watch.  According to Breitling, this new version of the Navitimer is inspired by versions of the watch worn in the 1960s by race car drivers Jim Clark and Graham Hill, who were also pilots and would have been able to make use of the Navitimer’s slide rule bezel in flight. This is a watch that, at least in a contemporary context, straddles the line between the automotive and pilot watch worlds, and has been embraced by both cultures (which admittedly overlap a fair amount).  The Navitimer B09’s case measures 41mm in diameter and is available with either a black or blue dial with white subdials, a c...

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Monta Introduces a Pair of Limited Editions to Celebrate their Tenth Anniversary Worn & Wound
Monta Oct 16, 2026

Monta Introduces a Pair of Limited Editions to Celebrate their Tenth Anniversary

For their tenth anniversary, Monta has released a pair of limited editions paying tribute to the Swiss watchmaking town of Neuchâtel, where every Monta from the earliest days of the brand has been developed. The two new watches, variants of the Triumph and Skyquest, offer a bunch of unique Easter eggs for longtime Monta fans while also remaining attractive and accessible timepieces on their own. Like all Montas, they are understated and built on a love of vintage tool watches, but for their tenth anniversary the team has allowed themselves to get a bit reflective in some of the design details, which I think many enthusiasts who’ve been with them from the beginning will appreciate. The Neuchâtel X collection, as it’s known, is marked most obviously by new opaline dials to set them apart from the rest of the Monta lineup. The Skyquest Neuchâtel X features an old school printed layout with beige lume for a vintage effect, as well as custom dial typography for the Monta logo not seen prior to this collection. The Skyquest’s handset is also unique to this watch, and draws on a sword hand style popular with collectors of vintage sports watches.  The Skyquest remains at 40.7mm in diameter and 11.8mm thick. The red and blue 24 hour bezel allows the tracking of a third time zone with the help of Monta’s Caliber M-23, a rebadged Sellita SW330 “caller” style GMT. The case is water resistant to 300 meters and of course is paired with Monta’s excellent bracelet with a...

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The Wren Vessel: A Surprisingly Wearable Integrated-Bracelet Watch For The Future Fratello
Wren Oct 13, 2026

The Wren Vessel: A Surprisingly Wearable Integrated-Bracelet Watch For The Future

After the 41mm Diver One and the fan-favorite Diver 38 Seafoam, New York-based Wrist Enthusiast founder Craig Karger is back with a new Wren watch. Karger felt there were already too many vintage-inspired integrated-bracelet sports watches, so he asked designer Max Resnick to help him develop a future-oriented one. However, there was one challenge: Karger […] Visit The Wren Vessel: A Surprisingly Wearable Integrated-Bracelet Watch For The Future to read the full article.

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Introducing: The Raymond Weil Freelancer World-Traveller Celebrating The Founder's 100th Birthday Hodinkee
Raymond Weil Freelancer World-Traveller Celebrating Oct 10, 2026

Introducing: The Raymond Weil Freelancer World-Traveller Celebrating The Founder's 100th Birthday

What We Know It seems as though Raymond Weil has been everywhere this year as the Geneva-based, family-owned independent brand celebrates its 50th anniversary. The company entered the integrated-bracelet sport watch realm in June with its A.R.T. collection, launching a lovely chronograph—The Fifty—featuring a vintage, new old stock Valjoux movement from the year the brand was born, 1976. But RW is marking another milestone this year. Today, on October 10th (also World Watch Day, btw), Raymond Weil himself would have turned 100 if he were still with us. A frequent and enthusiastic traveler, the brand is paying tribute to its founder with a limited-edition model, the Freelancer World-Traveller.  The star of the show for this run of 260 pieces is, most certainly, the dial. It's a relief-rendered world map in the style of the Mercator projection, rendered in textured champagne, against a dark blue background, representing the oceans. Rather than the brand logo, Raymond Weil's signature sits at 6 o'clock and above the date window. The indexes are applied and surrounded by a 24-hour scale in blue for the evening and beige for the daytime. The outer ring of the dial features 24 world cities and their corresponding time zones. Turning the knurled bezel rotates the city ring to allow for shifting time zones or tracking.  The local time display features tapering baton hands filled with Super-LumiNova, while the GMT hand, which can be manipulated by moving the screw-down cro...

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Hamilton Introduces the American Classic Cushion Mechanical Worn & Wound
Blancpain Oct 6, 2026

Hamilton Introduces the American Classic Cushion Mechanical

We’re at an interesting time when it comes to the dialogue in the watch community on vintage inspired watches. Watches that make explicit references to the past are simply less common now than they were a decade ago, or even 4 or 5 years ago. I’ve long believed that a maturing group of collectors who entered the hobby when these watches were all the rage have aged into a point in their collecting journeys when more adventurous and contemporary designs simply have more interest.  But this theory really only applies to what most of us refer to as “midcentury” watches. Think about the earliest dive watches from Rolex, Blancpain, and others, the types of dress and everyday watches worn by Don Draper on Mad Men, and extending through to the earliest bits of 60s and 70s funkiness. That’s the vintage inspired wheelhouse for watch brands seeking to tap into the community’s desire to commune with the past, whether through real or imagined nostalgia. Watches from a century ago are an entirely different category.  Enter the Hamilton American Classic Cushion Mechanical. This is an entirely new collection from the brand that finds them looking to designs from the 1920s for inspiration. Watches from this period never really had a widespread moment of resurgence like divers from the 1960s, but if you’ve spent some time in the hobby you’ve undoubtedly encountered collectors who are deeply into exactly this kind of thing. There are a number of interesting reasons to colle...

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Introducing: Hamilton American Classic Cushion Mechanical Hodinkee
Hamilton American Classic Cushion Mechanical Oct 2, 2026

Introducing: Hamilton American Classic Cushion Mechanical

What We Know This week, Hamilton dropped the latest in their series of vintage-inspired watches. But where most brands lean hard on their mid-century offerings for their re-editions, here Hamilton takes a different tack, reaching deep into their archive to resurrect watches so old, they'd be better described as antique rather than vintage. So, it is with the Hamilton American Classic Cushion, which breathes new life into a century-old design. And before you ask, these aren't quartz fashion watches dressed up in vintage clothing; these are tried-and-true hand-wound mechanical watches. The new collection — and it really is a collection, with six models split across two case sizes — is directly inspired by cushion-case watches made by Hamilton in the 1920s. If they seem eerily familiar for watches designed 100 years ago, it may be because Cillian Murphy wore an antique Hamilton cushion watch in Oppenheimer. Here, those watches have been quite respectfully updated for 2026, and though absolute fidelity was not the goal here, these remain easily among the most faithful-feeling reissues we've seen from Hamilton recently. As I mentioned earlier, a big part of the appeal of these watches comes down to the choice to use a hand-winding mechanical movement in these watches, rather than the quartz movements so often used in these small-size vintage reissues. Here, Hamilton is using the H-42, a manual-wind caliber that is, in essence, Hamilton's branded version of the ETA 7001. It'...

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Hands-On: Seiko Alpinist GMT HBC007 Hodinkee
Seiko Alpinist GMT HBC007 Sep 29, 2026

Hands-On: Seiko Alpinist GMT HBC007

For the life of me, I can't remember if I've ever owned an Alpinist. I think I did, for a little while. I know I at least borrowed one for a while, but the Alpinist was never as central to me as it has been for a lot of watch guys of my vintage (by that, I mean collectors who got into this whole thing in the late 2000s). If I did own an Alpinist, it was a brief, flirtatious affair meant to satisfy curiosity before I found my way back to the SKX (a watch I have owned many, many examples of). Still, the Alpinist — specifically the SARB017 Alpinist with its green dial, compass bezel, and gold numerals — seemed as close to omnipresent as a watch could get in my early days of collecting and learning. They made daily appearances on wristcheck channels on forums, and their sudden appearance on one of my friends' wrists was a great sign that they were becoming properly watch-enthused. It's hard to quantify the Alpinist's impact, but here's the thing: while the Alpinist may not be the Seiko thatmost watch enthusiasts collect today, if you control for "dive watch," I'd hazard a guess it's at least close. And in an era when it felt like a Seiko was the price of entry to "watch enthusiast," it was a watch that mattered. And then, it vanished. Okay, that's maybe a little dramatic. The Alpinist had a long run, and like so many of the watches Seiko introduced in the '90s and '00s, it was eventually sunsetted and, a few short years later, replaced with something that looks awfully sim...

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Introducing: The Louis Vuitton Monterey In Ceramic Hodinkee
Louis Vuitton Monterey Sep 28, 2026

Introducing: The Louis Vuitton Monterey In Ceramic

What We Know The 2025 revival of the Louis Vuitton Monterey was a curious moment for the brand. Certainly influenced by a recent surge in popularity for the original LV I and LV II watches among celebrities and vintage collectors, it was a small(ish) 188-piece run (priced at $60,000) meant to show the brand was paying attention to what was happening around it. While the original LV I was a quartz watch with several complications, the brand simplified the aesthetics with the revival—gone were the complications and the distinctive, busy dial with all of its markings, as the new Monterey was time-only with a mechanical movement. But that Monterey also demonstrated the craft of La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, introducing a simpler dial in grand feu enamel. While it may have seemed like a small blip in the brand's overall plans, Louis Vuitton has more to say about the pebble-like designs from 1988 by Italian architect Gae Aulenti—the Monterey Ceramic, a duo of watches that focuses on the smaller LV II. Now, the Louis Vuitton Monterey Ceramics are not part of a limited edition and officially enter the brand's permanent collection. The cases are faithful to the original, preserving the model's smaller 37mm case size and both original ceramic colors: green and black. The polished, pebble-shaped case is slightly thicker at 11mm, however, because it houses the automatic LFTMA01.02 caliber rather than the original quartz movement. Like last year's Monterey, the Monterey Ceram...

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Six of the Most Obscure Watch and Car Tie-Ins You’ve Likely Never Heard Of Worn & Wound
TAG Heuer Sep 23, 2026

Six of the Most Obscure Watch and Car Tie-Ins You’ve Likely Never Heard Of

In terms of analog intricacy and an unyielding enthusiasm for the vintage and enduring, watches and the automotive realm are a natural A-to-B: it should come as no surprise that the Venn diagram of watch nerds and automotive nerds is eerily close to a circle.  Yet, there’s more to the world of branded cross-promotion than, say, TAG Heuer and Porsche. Some of the most off-the-beaten-path collaborations are worthy of deep dives, and the six examples highlighted here (including many from Heuer!) are collectible and worthy of appreciation by those who know. Because there’s only so much that can be represented by Steve McQueen, in that white racing suit, giving the British equivalent of the middle finger. Thankfully, the world of mechanical fascination runs so much deeper than that.  IWC Mark XII x Saab “Born from Jets” was the advertising slogan of the now-defunct Saab for the last 20 or so years of its life, and while there was a distinct difference between Saab AG the defense contractor and the General Motors-owned division, it made for some really, really cool television ads. IWC, who built its reputation on pilot’s watches, lent its flagship Mark Series to a Saab tie-in in 1997: if you put down the deposit for a limited-edition 900 Mellow Yellow Cabrio, you were awarded one of these Mark XIIs, each one customized with a yellow leather strap and “Saab Automatic” on the dial instead of the usual “Mark XII Automatic.” Today, if you can find one, they go fo...

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Watches, Stories, & Gear: Watches on the Runway, A Second Look at Bremont, and Lancaster Watch Weekend Worn & Wound
Jaeger-LeCoultre Heuer Universal Genève Tudor Sep 19, 2026

Watches, Stories, & Gear: Watches on the Runway, A Second Look at Bremont, and Lancaster Watch Weekend

J. Press’ Vintage Watches New York Fashion Week wrapped this week, and I was lucky enough to attend a few shows, most notably J. Press, which is now under Jack Carlson’s leaderhsip. From my front-row seat, there was plenty to take in, from the Fall-Winter 2026 collection and the debut of J. Press womenswear to John Slattery from Mad Men sitting across the runway from me. But once the show started, I was more focused on the models’ wrists than anything else. For the show, Jack Carlson worked with Eric Wind and Wind Vintage, who brought a collection of 50 vintage watches to New York for Carlson to choose from. Pieces from Rolex, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Heuer, Universal Genève, Tudor, and Dunhill found their way onto the runway, selected and paired with looks throughout the collection. Now showing his second season, Carlson’s vision for the brand is coming into focus, where his knack for worldbuilding and getting the fine details perfected continue to shine through. Insta360 Luna Pro I’m going to be 35 years old in two weeks and, I have to tell you, thank God I’m not any younger. I grew up at the perfect time for being online. While I’m not a digital native, I’d say I’m a digital green card holder. I’ve been online long enough to understand the lingo, but I didn’t grow up completely immersed in the culture. Had I been, I definitely would have had a YouTube channel. And an embarrassing one at that. I would have sung on there (à la Millie Bobby Brown), tried m...

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Hot Take: Rolex’s Perpetual Padellone Annual Calendar Takes A Nod From The Past Fratello
Rolex s Perpetual Padellone Annual Sep 15, 2026

Hot Take: Rolex’s Perpetual Padellone Annual Calendar Takes A Nod From The Past

Rolex has added a rather unexpected complication to its Perpetual collection with the new Perpetual Padellone. Taking its name from the vintage reference 8171, the watch combines a 39mm case with an annual calendar and a moonphase display. At first glance, it is perhaps the dial that grabs your attention, particularly the blue enamel moonphase […] Visit Hot Take: Rolex’s Perpetual Padellone Annual Calendar Takes A Nod From The Past to read the full article.

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Recommended Reading: "Bubble Backs" By Masahiro Endo Is An Education On The Original Rolex Collectors' Watch Hodinkee
Rolex Collectors Watch If you've Sep 10, 2026

Recommended Reading: "Bubble Backs" By Masahiro Endo Is An Education On The Original Rolex Collectors' Watch

If you've never collected Rolex Bubblebacks before, you should probably forget nearly everything you know about vintage watches. At least, that's what it feels like you should do when you start wading into the space. Things like reference numbers are much less valuable to remember than movements, case designs, printing details, and a general ability to just remember everything you've seen to get a sense of feel for what is right and what isn't. And trust me, a lot isn't. You could spend decades looking at these watches, but "Bubble Back" by Masahiro Endo, the owner of vintage retailer Private Eyes in Tokyo, is a great reference to jump-start your understanding of an iconic (and currently underappreciated) model. I mentioned this in last week's review of John Nagayama's "96," but the only watch I'd be more afraid to deep-dive into than the Patek ref. 96 is the Rolex "Bubbleback." It's not even an official model, but a nickname for Rolex watches made from 1933 to the mid-1950s with a domed, "bubble-like" caseback. So when you open Endo-san's book, you'll probably immediately be struck by the fact that none of the examples (except the later ref. 6062 and ref. 8171) have reference numbers. According to collectors, that's not the most useful thing for understanding the Bubbleback. Basically, every other detail matters more. We've previously published a story about the bubbleback with a lot of thoughts and tips for understanding these models, courtesy of Ken Jacobs and Justin Gr...

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Six From Seiko: A Roundup of Amazing Chronographs From the Depths of (Relative) Obscurity Worn & Wound
Seiko Sep 9, 2026

Six From Seiko: A Roundup of Amazing Chronographs From the Depths of (Relative) Obscurity

Vintage Seiko, as most collectors know, is a rich tapestry. Once you learn the story of Colonel William Pogue, or try to track down the funky bracelet that Bruce Lee paired with his own Speed-Timer, the wormholes naturally open themselves, each with their own dizzying amounts of reference numbers, specific models, and fun nicknames for the mind to notice and then squirrel away for later.  But what about the ones you might have overlooked? Midcentury Seiko chronographs are a riot of design variations, bold patterns, and contrasting color schemes—and all backed by genuine innovation in the guise of the first automatic chronograph, flyback movements with stacked register hands, collaborations with luminary designers, and freakish dabbles with postmodernism. It’s what makes them so much fun to pay attention to.  Hence, these six Seiko chronographs that play with the form, proving that even across the decades there are still surprises to rediscover. Not just familiar references, but obscure offshoots.  Seiko 6138-8000 “Baby Panda” Seiko’s dual-register chronograph debuted shortly after the 6139, which we all know as the world’s first automatic chronograph. And while both watches represent futuristic seventies design, the slimmer 6139 takes a backseat to this lineup’s exaggeratedly bulky cases and clashing, patterned color schemes that have garnered nicknames like “UFO,” “Kakume” (“square eyes”), and “John Player Special” (a nickname popularized ...

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Introducing: The Baltic Aquascaphe GMT MK-II Hodinkee
Baltic Aquascaphe GMT MK-II What Sep 3, 2026

Introducing: The Baltic Aquascaphe GMT MK-II

What We Know Last year, we covered Baltic's relaunch of the Aquascaphe, their vintage-leaning traditional-style diver (not to be confused with their dual-crown version). That release came in several colors and two sizes. Now they're relaunching the Aquascaphe GMT as a new Mark II version. While the aesthetic changes are more subtle than on the diver, the changes under the hood are more substantial. The Aquascaphe GMT MK-II has a subtly redesigned case profile (39.5mm by 13.8mm, 316L stainless steel, with a 47mm lug-to-lug), with the most distinguishing feature being the new crown guards that make the case distinctly more modern. The rest of the case has been reworked (it is 0.5mm wider and 0.8mm thicker), with vertical brushing on the lugs and 200m water resistance. The watch still has a luminous 24-click GMT sapphire bidirectional bezel. The caseback engraving (which we've posted a picture of later in the story), on the other hand, is simplified from the globe design on the first version. What used to be three color variants is now four, all with glossy black dials and Super-LumiNova BGW9. One has a blue-and-light-blue bezel with light-blue dial text and a GMT hand. Another is a "Pepsi" style with red accents. The third has a blue-and-green bezel, and the last, the newest, is black and grey with orange accents. The hands and indices are a bit bolder and rounder. Inside the case, the brand has changed to a "flyer" Miyota 9075 GMT movement with a 42-hour power reserve. The ...

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Breitling Reimagines A Jazz Classic With The Navitimer B09 Chronograph 41 Tribute To Miles Davis Fratello
Breitling Reimagines Sep 2, 2026

Breitling Reimagines A Jazz Classic With The Navitimer B09 Chronograph 41 Tribute To Miles Davis

Breitling honors the centennial of Miles Davis’s birth with the new Navitimer B09 Chronograph 41 Tribute to Miles Davis. This limited-edition Navitimer revives a host of vintage design cues to create a fitting tribute to the pioneering jazz musician. At its heart is the manually wound B09 caliber, recalling the hand-wound Navitimers of the 1960s […] Visit Breitling Reimagines A Jazz Classic With The Navitimer B09 Chronograph 41 Tribute To Miles Davis to read the full article.

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Introducing: Seiko Prospex 1965 Heritage Diver's Watch HBC011 Hodinkee
Seiko Prospex 1965 Heritage Diver's Aug 28, 2026

Introducing: Seiko Prospex 1965 Heritage Diver's Watch HBC011

What We Know Seiko has launched a new version of their popular vintage-inspired 1965 Heritage Diver, with a dial and color palette chosen by you. Okay, well, maybe not you directly, but through a fan-selection process that Seiko launched last year to mark the 60th anniversary of the original 62MAS diver. Seiko fans were presented with four variants of a watch that would eventually reach production, each inspired by a different tone and color the ocean can take on over the course of a day. In the end, the winner of last summer's campaign was this "Daytime Blue" color, which evokes the clear blue waters you'll find in tropical locales where the water is clear and the sun is shining. Other options included a bright yellow, deep green, and orange-y red. It's not wholly surprising that the blue dial would have won in a public ballot, but each is compelling, and I'll be curious to see whether Seiko, having developed and shown off the full range, ever chooses to release any of the other colors. The watch itself is a familiar one. The HBC011 shares a spec sheet with the enthusiast-favorite (and James') favorite SPB lineup of dive watches, specifically with the '20MAS' generation released in 2024, which brought with it a host of quality-of-life improvements, including a refined case and new movement. That case, which Seiko claims to be 40mm wide, 13mm thick, and 46.6mm lug-to-lug (and which James measured at 40.2mm wide, 13.4mm thick, and 46.6mm lug-to-lug in his Hands-On), is agai...

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Blancpain Introduces the Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe 70th Anniversary Limited Edition Worn & Wound
Blancpain Introduces Aug 24, 2026

Blancpain Introduces the Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe 70th Anniversary Limited Edition

You know, I actually wasn’t going to write about this watch. An $18,000 vintage inspired dive watch from a brand that doesn’t hold a ton of personal relevance to me was just not super high on my list of priorities as Geneva Watch Days prep is now in full swing (this time next week, I will be surviving on CHF 10 Coke Zeros). But, over the weekend the collective watch internet kind of lost its mind over the new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe 70th Anniversary Limited Edition, so I shifted my to-do list around a bit and, well, here we are.  Of course, there have been a lot of memes and jokes about this watch sharing a certain similarity to the Seiko 62MAS and the many, many reinterpretations and reissues of that watch over the years. I’m frankly less interested in those aesthetic similarities than I am in the very conceit of this watch, what it illuminates about Blancpain, and the way it fits into the neverending conversation around price sensitivity that we’ve been having for months as we see MSRPs shoot higher and higher. But what I’ll say about the appearance of the Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe 70th Anniversary Limited Edition is simply that, at this point, 70 years on from the advent of this type of watch, I don’t think any brand really owns the aesthetic identity of something so generic. Lots and lots of watches from all kinds of brands look like this, just like lots and lots of watches look like a Speedmaster, or a Calatrava. The design tropes of these wat...

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