5,031 articles · 36 videos found · page 69 of 169
What does innovation actually look like across 271 years of unbroken watchmaking? We're back in the Vacheron Constantin archives to find out.
WristBuzz
Every serial-obsessed Rolex conversation starts here: the reference number tells you the era, and the era tells you the spec. Acrylic vs sapphire, aluminium vs Cerachrom, tritium vs Chromalight, and why the 5-digit refs are the sweet spot most collectors quietly agree on.
Worn & Wound
There’s genuine horological history in the home of Beaucroft Watches, the independent brand founded in 2020 in Cambridge. England was once the heart of the world’s finest watchmaking, a legacy that dated back to the 16th century. Some of the most important innovations originated in these early epochs, up until Switzerland took the mantle in the mid-1800s: complex clocks meant for royalty, and instruments for gauging the stars and the sea alike. Thomas Tompion, the “Father of English Clockmaking,” pioneered the hairspring as a viable means of regulating time, clockmaker Thomas Mudge invented the lever escapement in 1755, and John Harrison’s marine chronometer solved the problem of determining longitude once and for all. Zoom forward about five centuries. Some of the most exciting, historically-minded efforts in independent watches are emerging from British watchmakers, many of whom are attempting to evoke this proud tradition. For Beaucroft, whose latest watch is the Arc, there’s no lack of influence to draw from among Cambridge’s stone archways, pointed Gothic windows, and the ancient towers that loom over King’s and Trinity Colleges. The Arc is an evolution of Beaucroft’s last release, 2023’s Seeker, which laid the groundwork for the watchmaker’s design language. Namely, pill-shaped baton markers with unique markers at 3, 6, 9, and 12 that feature round pips at the end, resembling automotive gauges. Diamond-cut hour and minute hands are shaped li...
Hodinkee
Transatlantic by Design: From early pocket watches to the new Timer, Tiffany & Co.’s watchmaking has always moved between New York and Switzerland.
Time+Tide
As summer in the northern hemisphere arrives, we approach the season of the year when Swiss watchmakers take their Vacances horlogères – a tradition since 1937 where workshops shut down in late July and early August for a three-week break. Of course, when Geneva Watch Days comes around, the industry is ramped back up into … Continued
WatchAdvice
Hublot’s Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Yellow Neon SAXEM is one of those watches that leave you in awe, combining neon sapphire brilliance with high-complication tourbillon watchmaking. What We Love The bold Yellow Neon SAXEM case completely transforms under different lighting. The skeletonised dial offers a beautifully balanced design that gives the watch real mechanical theatre. Few watches in watchmaking will command attention quite like this, especially in natural light. What We Don’t The 44mm case size wears better than expected, but it is still on the larger side. Even sapphire lovers may find the Yellow Neon SAXEM a lot to handle. A black structured strap option would let the case and dial take centre stage even more, while simultaneously reducing the overall ‘distinctive’ presence of the watch. Overall Rating: 8.6 / 10 Value For Money: 8.5/10 Design: 9.0/10 Wearability: 8.0/10 Build Quality: 9.0/10 Few timepieces in the world of watchmaking can grab attention like a bright yellow-coloured watch. Now imagine adding a transparent sapphire case to the mix, and suddenly, you have something that becomes almost impossible to ignore on the wrist. That is exactly what we get with the Hublot Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Yellow Neon SAXEM. This is a watch that does not ask to be seen, but rather commands it the moment you see it. In that regard, this, in my opinion, is the kind of timepiece that perfectly encapsulates what Hublot is all about. Since the beginnin...
Monochrome
There’s no denying that Seiko’s collection is vast, ranging from accessible, sporty watches in the Seiko 5 Sports collection to professionally-oriented tool watches from the Prospex line. Also important for the Japanese manufacturer is the Presage range, itself to be divided into several sub-collections. The highlights are, without a doubt, the Craftsmanship Series that pays […]
SJX Watches
Singapore retailer The Hour Glass has announced the return of IAMWATCH, the retailer’s indie-focused watch fair, slated to take place November 12-15 at the Singapore Edition hotel, with public days November 13-15. The event comes two years after the successful inaugural edition, hinting at the possibility of a biennial format akin to that of Dubai Watch Week. Focused on independent watchmaking The inaugural 2024 event featured the biggest names in independent watchmaking, including foundational figures like Kari Voutilainen and Felix Baumgartner of Urwerk, as well as the leading lights of the younger generation including Rexhep Rexhepi, Raúl Pagès, and Florian Bédat and Gaël Petermann. The second edition is set to be even larger, with more makers in attendance. Attendees can expect to encounter industry executives as well — Aurel Bacs, Jean Arnault, Max Büsser, and Jean-Claude and Pierre Biver attended the first edition. It’s also sure to be one of the year’s best opportunities for watch spotting — this Patek Philippe ref. 2523 world time with a blue enamel dial and “Gobbi” signature was seen at the event in 2024. The relaxed dress code explicitly encourages double wristing, so the chances of spotting a unicorn in the wild are doubled. IAMWATCH will be held at the Singapore Edition hotel. Admission is free and open to the public daily November 13-15, however, advance registration is required and it can be done online at Iamwatch.com.
Monochrome
Anoma was founded in 2024 and entered the watchmaking scene with the distinctive, rounded, triangular-shaped A1 model. Inspired by a 1950s free-form table designed by Charlotte Perriand, the original A1 has since evolved through small-series releases, the Slate and the Optical, and, more recently, the permanent Abyss and Stone models. The young London-based brand now […]
WristBuzz
One Swiss surprise with a hand-painted island dial, one Seiko you can lose in a beach bag, one G-Shock for pool days, and eight more in between. Ten watches to actually enjoy on holiday, from €91 to €8,100.
SJX Watches
This weekend, the United States marks its 250th Independence Day — the perfect opportunity to reflect on recent American contributions to the field of horology. On episode 43 of the SJX Podcast, SJX and Brandon discuss the latest entry in this field — the Liberty 250 from 1776 Atelier — and break down the claim that 90% of its components are manufactured in the US. The conversation also discusses RGM and J.N. Shapiro — brands that have contributed substantially to contemporary American watchmaking. Finally, to look into the future we go back to school by visiting the Watch Technology Institute in Seattle — the last remaining full-time public watchmaking programme in the US capable of granting a major certification. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
Monochrome
Steeped in tradition, perfectly in place in the present, and not shy about welcoming the future, the Tradition collection by Breguet is perhaps the finest representation of Abraham-Louis Breguet’s true watchmaking vision. This cornerstone collection was introduced in 2005 and has reshaped the perception of modern watchmaking through something remarkable: the creation of a pocket-watch-style […]
Fratello
Chronoswiss is a sneaky brand! Nod off for too long, and there’s a good chance that the Swiss independent will have released something intriguing. In today’s case, there are two very different debuts in the Opus and Pulse lines. However, one trait or material exists as a common theme. Our favorite metal, gold, comes into […] Visit Chronoswiss Goes For The Gold With The New Opus Dakar Sundown And Pulse GMT Frosted Guilloché Gold to read the full article.
SJX Watches
Seiko’s latest wristwatch is the surprising Star Time, which features a disc-based display that tells the time as well as elapsed time for up to one million hours, equivalent to 114 years. An unconventional and philosophical watch for a typically conservative brand, the Star Time is unfortunately not available commercially but is instead a unique creation for baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani. Japanese by birth but now a star in America’s Major League Baseball, where he plays for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Mr Ohtani is a longtime and loyal Seiko ambassador who first partnered with the watch brand in 2016, well before he was a global star. Though Seiko has unveiled limited edition models associated with the ballplayer in the past, the Star Time is the first unique watch made specifically for Mr Ohtani. Shohei Ohtani (left) and Seiko Watch Corporation Chairman and chief executive Shinji Hattori Initial thoughts The Star Time is a surprise coming from Seiko. Even though Seiko builds excellent watches across the breadth of the price spectrum – while keeping a keen eye on value – its watches are almost always predictable (though the concept watches from its annual Power Design Project are always intriguing but never commercially available). In contrast, the Star Time philosophical and impractical, with a simple yet complex display. Though the display is straightforward, the engineering behind the module that underpins the five discs is more complex than it might seem given...
Monochrome
Ever since Kurt Klaus developed his ingenious perpetual calendar mechanism in the early 1980s, the Schaffhausen-based manufacture has made one of watchmaking’s most sophisticated complications surprisingly easy to live with. Yet despite appearing across several generations of Portugieser, the perpetual calendar had never found its way into the collection’s sportiest member. Perhaps for a reason, […]
Hodinkee
What We Know Less than a year ago, Greubel Forsey discontinued the most emblematic pillar of its particularly well-finished watchmaking, the Balancier Contemporain. The Balancier is dead. Long live the Balancier. The new Balancier QM, that is. Very much grown out of the lessons, successes, and even the architecture of the Balancier Contemporain, the Balancier QM is the first to carry the brand's new Qualité Musée standard. While it looks somewhat different, with a floating balance cock and rearranged location of the power reserve, the Balancier QM is a familiar watch to anyone who has seen a GF before. That's because the movement borrows much of its architecture from the old Balancier Contemporain, as well as its identical sizing (39.6mm by 12.25mm for both models), now in white gold. What the Balancier QM is instead is more of a codification of a new Qualité Musée (QM) certification for this and future GF watches. Like the Patek seal, Qualité Fleurier, Breguet Hallmark, and other in-house standards (all three of which have also just added chronometric certification not found here), this guarantees a certain—particularly extreme—level of hand-finishing quality. Finishing has been one of the key raisons d'être for GF since its founding. There's been an "if you know, you know" quality to the brand that signaled that, included in their extreme pricing, you get extreme finishing from the brand. That was a novelty in the past, but now it's a "must" for any high-en...
Hodinkee
Former Audemars Piguet Chief Executive François-Henri Bennahmias unveiled details of a new watch brand called N3W5 that will launch in late 2027 and draw on some significant names from the Swiss industry for the design, production, and craftsmanship. Called 'N3W5' - an acronym for 'North, East, West, South' and pronounced 'NEWS,' the new marque will launch at Dubai Watch Week next year, the Honourable Merchants Group, the Bennahmias-led luxury brand constellation, said in a statement. Watch prices for the first models will start at about CHF 20,000, and production will commence at 'several thousand pieces' in the first year. A second collection will debut in 2028, according to the company's plans. François-Henri Bennahmias at an event in Crissier, Switzerland, introducing The Honourable Merchants Group. The news of N3W5 comes as pressure and speculation have mounted as to what Bennahmias, who led AP for more than a decade and oversaw a period of spectacular sales growth to more than CHF 2.3 billion for the family-owned brand, would do next in the watch world. At a flashy event near Lausanne last year, Bennahmias unveiled his vision for THMG, a new, multi-brand luxury brand group backed by private investors that promised a new philosophy of work, innovation, products, and sustainability in the luxury space. The charismatic executive said the new group would not be driven solely by profit and that at THMG, "we want to change the world of business. It is a mission," Be...
Monochrome
Designed as a “weekend watch for a Parmigiani customer” and comprising the time-and-date Automatic and Chronograph lines, with both date and no-date configurations in exciting colour combinations, the Tonda PF Sport collection (introduced in 2023) added an Ultra-Cermet model in 2025, bringing something genuinely new to high-end watchmaking. With it, Parmigiani Fleurier became the first […]
Quill & Pad
Look closely at the modern Swiss watch industry today and you’re quickly forced to pick a side depending on what actually matters to you in a luxury watch today.
Deployant
The CITIZEN introduces a limited-edition model with an indigo washi paper dial hand-dyed in kachi-iro, the traditional Japanese “victory colour,” in a 40mm Super Titanium case with Cal. A060 Eco-Drive movement. 400 pieces worldwide. The following post is based on press release information. Editorial commentary appears in italics. New: The CITIZEN AQ4094-58L Limited Edition CommentaryRead More
WristBuzz
A quartet of new releases, one returning collector favorite, and a date that matters more than most anniversaries in watchmaking.
Monochrome
The idea of combining the resonance effect and a minute repeater isn’t new to Armin Strom. The independent watchmaker already, back in 2019, presented a technically impressive watch (what else to expect, as everything the brand does is technically impressive), the Masterpiece Minute Repeater Resonance. Regarding pure watchmaking, there was nothing to complain about here. […]
Monochrome
Maurice Lacroix introduced the 1975 collection last year to mark its 50th anniversary. Since then, the line has expanded to include GMT and day-date models, as well as the 1975 Master Grand Date Retrograde, which was released earlier this year. Now, the Swiss brand welcomes the new 1975 Legacy with a machine-guilloché petite seconde display that sits […]
Worn & Wound
Is there a brand that more completely blurs the line between the definition of “microbrand” and “independent brand” than Brew? It depends, of course, on how you define each term. If a brand needs to exist in the haute horlogerie space and craft movements or other components from scratch in an artisanal way to be considered “independent,” then Brew will probably never qualify under those terms. But if your criteria is an intentional, well defined point of view on watchmaking with a clear, instantly recognizable design language, all executed according to the singular creative vision of the brand’s founder, Brew easily fits. I’ve never been one to see microbrand as a pejorative or diminishing label, but in Brew’s case I might argue that it doesn’t necessarily reflect the brand’s growth over the last decade, and the widespread recognition and popularity they’ve found outside of the enthusiast space. Importantly, Brew continues to find interesting ways to iterate on the themes established since the brand’s founding by Jonathan Ferrer, the founder and designer behind the brand. It would be easy for Brew to simply pump out new colorways for successful models, but instead they’ve taken steps (sometimes, admittedly, slower than some collectors and enthusiasts would like) to gradually expand what people think of when they consider what Brew actually is. To that end, their latest watch is a new version of their manually wound Metric (with a Swiss movemen...
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 […]
Deployant
We visited the Indian watchmaking giant Titan in their headquarters in Bengaluru and their manufacture in Hosur. And attended the launch of the Jalsa.
Time+Tide
Studio Underd0g’s new D0ghouse is part watchmaking workshop, part enthusiast playground, and a chance to build your own exclusive edition
Monochrome
Swiss watch exports have been volatile for some time. Sluggish, oscillating between highs and lows, they reflect a global environment marked by uncertainty – not least because China, once the engine and Eldorado of the industry, has slowed down significantly. In this context, some analysts – armed with Excel spreadsheets, demographic curves and rising purchasing […]
Teddy Baldassarre
We look at "horology" in the context of watchmaking and explain exactly what it is and why it's relevant.
Monochrome
Make a list of independent watchmakers working outside Switzerland, highlight the most fascinating ones, and Dutch creator Machiel Hulsman will be among them. After leaving a career in IT, Hulsman dedicated himself to watchmaking, gradually acquiring the expertise required to design and manufacture complete movements from scratch, and to produce watches that are all one-of-a-kind […]
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