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251 articles · 4 videos found · page 7 of 9

Longines Debuts the First Non-Limited Spirit Zulu Time in Titanium Worn & Wound
Longines Debuts Aug 15, 2024

Longines Debuts the First Non-Limited Spirit Zulu Time in Titanium

Longines has been experiencing significant success in the enthusiast space since their pilot-style Spirit line of watches launched. Over the last few years, they have introduced 39mm variants and a GMT version called the Spirit Zulu Time. Zulu time is a military term that refers to Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). These timepieces, also known as GMT watches, can show a second time zone using a third hand and a 24-hour scale on the dial. In December 2023, Longines partnered with Hodinkee to produce a special version of the Zulu Time in grade 5 titanium, featuring a 39mm case and limited to only 500 pieces worldwide. This special edition bore a striking resemblance to another brand’s popular GMT watch but was significantly thinner and much less slab-sided, which appealed to many collectors. As successful as that model was, Longines did step away from the original charm of the Spirit collection, leaving enthusiasts wanting a grade 5 Titanium GMT watch that was not a limited edition. They have heard the call and have just announced a new 39mm Spirit Zulu Time in this material, which fits right in with all the others in the lineup. Why are we explicitly mentioning the titanium grade used in these watches? In wristwatches, there are generally two types of titanium used. Grade 2 and grade 5, and while they both have the key qualities that make the material special (they are both very light), there is a tangible difference. Grade 2 titanium is commercially pure titanium, which ...

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First Look - Union Glashütte Presents New Editions Of The Racy Averin Chronograph Monochrome
Union Glashütte Aug 15, 2024

First Look - Union Glashütte Presents New Editions Of The Racy Averin Chronograph

Back in 2008, Union Glashütte introduced the square-cased Averin. This bold chronograph watch looked quite different from most, thanks to a unique display for the date. A central three-handed pointer followed a three-line scale. Different, unique and quite fun for sure! Now though, the brand has decided to simplify things a little and morph the […]

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REVIEW: Hands-On With The Limited Edition King Seiko KS1969 WatchAdvice
Grand Seiko Aug 10, 2024

REVIEW: Hands-On With The Limited Edition King Seiko KS1969

The King Seiko KS1969 Limited Edition is a timeless tribute to Seiko’s heritage, reimagined for the modern era. What We Love: Like current Seiko models, this latest King Seiko gets a modern slimmed-down reinterpretation. The multiple polished finishes from the case, bezel, and dial elements to the bracelet! The greenish-blue colour combined with the dragon-scale pattern makes the dial pop! What We Don’t: Not everyone may agree with the choice of dial colours for this collection from Seiko The movement needs to match the build quality and high level of finishing on the timepiece. It would’ve been great to get the date wheel to colour-match the new dial colours! Overall Rating: 8.9/10 Value for Money: 8.5/10 Wearability: 9/10 Design: 9/10 Build Quality: 9/10 In July this year, Seiko unveiled a new series of King Seiko dress watches to revive a classic heritage design. Before we get into this latest creation, we first need to look at King Seiko and some of the signature designs that came with it. The name of King Seiko is just as important to Japanese watchmakers as the name and brand of Grand Seiko. The story goes that King Seiko was first launched in 1961 alongside Grand Seiko, who were direct competitors of each other. Seiko did this because of the brand’s relentless pursuit of perfection and quality, as the rivalry between King Seiko and Grand Seiko would produce some exceptional timepieces. The 1960s were seen as the golden era for Seiko, as the brand quickly...

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In-Depth - Visiting Bremont, Understanding The Evolution and Answering Collectors’ Concerns Monochrome
Bremont Understanding Aug 1, 2024

In-Depth - Visiting Bremont, Understanding The Evolution and Answering Collectors’ Concerns

Today, for once, we won’t be travelling to Switzerland. We’re heading to a slightly more unusual place, in a country that’s not primarily known for its watchmaking industry. In a little town called Henley, about 30km away from London, is one of the very few large-scale watch brands of the United Kingdom, in fact probably […]

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Introducing - The Military Themed Bremont Broadsword Recon Bronze Monochrome
Bremont Broadsword Recon Bronze One Jul 31, 2024

Introducing - The Military Themed Bremont Broadsword Recon Bronze

One of the few large-scale watchmaking companies based on UK soil, Bremont has, over the years, forged strong connections with Britain’s Ministry of Defence, supplying the British Army with dedicated watches. As a tribute to this partnership and MoD watches of the past, Bremont created the Broadsword series, inspired by the all-important Dirty Dozen. First available […]

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Norqain Debuts the Latest in their Neverest Collection Worn & Wound
Norqain Debuts Jul 8, 2024

Norqain Debuts the Latest in their Neverest Collection

Mt. Everest has long held a grip on our cultural consciousness – and for good reason. Not only is it Earth’s highest mountain, but it takes an almost superhuman amount of determination and grit to scale it. Then, of course, there is the rich history of the Himalayas, making for an even more fascinating landscape – geographically and culturally – for our imaginations to explore. With all of this in mind, it seems that NORQAIN’s latest in their Neverest collection shows appreciation to the history, mystique, and people of the region through their Glacier Black and Ice Blue references. The 41mm DLC coated Neverest GMT Glacier Black features a black glacier dial inspired by the crevasses on Mt. Everest, with a second time zone and a 24-hour indication on a black and white ring surrounding the dial. The DLC black coating brings the overall appearance of the watch together, while the red-gold plated indices and hands add some contrast. The 40mm Neverest Glacier Ice Blue boasts an ice blue glacier dial with cracks that mimic the crevasses on Mt. Everest. The dial features diamond-cut, faceted blue indexes filled with white Super-LumiNova and blue diamond-cut faceted hour and minute hands. The steel case is paired with a blue ceramic bezel and is water-resistant up to 200 meters, ensuring reliability under even the most extreme conditions. Both watches are powered by a NORQAIN Manufacture Caliber by Kenissi. The Glacier Black model runs on Caliber NN20/2, which offers a ...

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First Look - Meet the New Arinis Collection, the Lake Diving Watch from Elka Monochrome
May 10, 2024

First Look - Meet the New Arinis Collection, the Lake Diving Watch from Elka

Microbrands are reshaping today’s watchmaking landscape in remarkable ways. These small-scale ventures craft enticing timepieces, leveraging modern technology, marketing strategies, and the combined expertise, passion, vision, and business acumen. What’s particularly striking, at least for some, is their ability to deliver well-designed, high-quality watches at compelling prices, often packed with features typically associated with much […]

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Depancel Adds New Watches to the Allure Line Worn & Wound
Mar 25, 2024

Depancel Adds New Watches to the Allure Line

Depancel’s racing-inspired design DNA is all over the French brand’s new Allure Automatic Chronograph 43mm. “As an engineer, I have always been fascinated by the beauty of mechanics, passionate about cars and watches,” said Clément Meynier, founder of Depancel. There are the obvious components–it is a chronograph, after all, meant to help drivers time their cars and calculate speed with the handy tachymeter. But Depancel sneaks in subtler cues as well. The Allure Automatic Chronograph features a textured dial meant to evoke the grille of a car, pushers meant to evoke pistons, and a crown meant to evoke a radiator cap. It’s not just a watch for racing–it’s a watch for racing enthusiasts, hoping to transport fans “to an era where chronographs were more than simple measuring instruments for race car drivers, they were loyal companions.” The Depancel Allure Automatic Chronograph 43mm is available in two colorways: a blue dial and a silver dial, both using orange as a secondary highlight color. Adding some further color options to the mix, it can be paired with a black, brown, or blue leather strap with orange stitching or a metal bracelet. On the leather straps, a one-off red, white, and blue stitch near the upper lugs pays subtle homage to the flag of France. With a non-reflective coating on the sapphire crystal and 100m of water resistance, the Depancel Allure Automatic Chronograph 43mm is durable, robust, and in a definitively contemporary case size.  ...

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Zenith Chronomaster Sport Guide Teddy Baldassarre
Zenith Feb 23, 2024

Zenith Chronomaster Sport Guide

When the Zenith Chronomaster Sport won the Chronograph Prize at the 2021 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie Genève, the watch world’s most prestigious awards, it was emphatically something new and different: the first chronograph watch able to measure 1/10-second chronograph readings on its bezel scale. However, despite the fact that the Chronomaster Sport collection can still be considered “new” in a practical sense, its origins, both aesthetic and technical, can be traced back much further, all the way to some of the earliest horological milestones of Zenith, one of the Swiss watch world’s most honored and accomplished watchmakers and the inventor of the groundbreaking movement that animates all the Chronomaster models, including the Sport. I spoke with Zenith’s Head of Heritage, Laurence Bodenmann, to help trace the evolution of the Chronomaster Sport and its strong ties to several noteworthy models of the past.    Zenith traces its impactful watchmaking history all the way back to 1865, and an ambitious 22-year-old watchmaker named George Favre-Jacot. A contemporary of the influential Swiss artist and designer Le Corbusier, a pioneer of avant-garde architecture, Favre-Jacot adopted a similarly modernist approach to watchmaking when he founded his atelier in Le Locle in the Swiss Jura. Taking cues from American watch firms like Waltham and Elgin, which had found success by introducing mass production into the traditionally artisanal trade, Georges Favre-Jacot & Co.,...

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Hands-On With The Otsuka Lotec No.7.5 - A Jump-Hour Watch With Monochromatic Swagger Fratello
Otsuka Lotec Jan 24, 2024

Hands-On With The Otsuka Lotec No.7.5 - A Jump-Hour Watch With Monochromatic Swagger

As a keen observer of the independent side of Japanese watchmaking, I felt honored when Precision Watch Co. reached out on behalf of Jiro Katayama. Katayama-san is a small-scale watchmaker I have been following for a few years. What I find fascinating is his self-taught watchmaking, a quality he shares with Hajime Asaoka that beggars […] Visit Hands-On With The Otsuka Lotec No.7.5 - A Jump-Hour Watch With Monochromatic Swagger to read the full article.

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Nodus and The Smoking Tire’s Matt Farah Team Up for a Bold, Driving Inspired LE Worn & Wound
Nodus Jan 8, 2024

Nodus and The Smoking Tire’s Matt Farah Team Up for a Bold, Driving Inspired LE

Automotive inspired watches come in many different forms. There are watches that draw attention to aesthetic similarities between well understood components of cars and watches (dials that look like gauges on a dashboard, or even putting an automaker’s badge on the dial). And then there are watches that are, ostensibly, meant to be thought of as tools for motorsport – chronographs with tachymeter scales and the like. But there’s another category – the one I tend to prefer – that takes a more abstract approach. These are watches that are imbued with the feeling of driving in their design. Autodromo, of course, are masters at this. Their watches capture a driving aesthetic that doesn’t simply port over elements of vehicle design into a watch, and they use color and texture to evoke specific aspects of driving culture. The latest from Nodus, their second collaboration with automotive personality Matt Farah, is very much in that vein. The new Nodus Canyon in Sunset Orange follows the successful launch of the Mint colorway of the same watch last year (it sold out immediately to Farah’s Patreon subscribers). The watch, designed by Farah, is conceived as an everyday sports watch, with a 41mm stainless steel case that measures 11.5mm tall and 47mm from lug to lug. To look at the watch, you would not immediately clock it as automotive inspired, but it’s filled with subtle and personal details from Farah’s long history in the automotive world that will make it rewa...

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Interview: Hind Seddiqi, Director General of Dubai Watch Week SJX Watches
Audemars Piguet Nov 29, 2023

Interview: Hind Seddiqi, Director General of Dubai Watch Week

Having began as a small-scale and mostly regional event in 2015 – I was there and thought it would become important one day – Dubai Watch Week (DWW) has since grown into an expansive horological extravaganza with an international audience. With some 23,000 visitors, a 42% increase over the 2021 event, this year’s DWW is the biggest to date. Sixty-three brands took part, ranging from giants like Rolex, Audemars Piguet, and Chanel, to independent watchmakers like F.P. Journe, Rexhep Rexhepi, and H. Moser & Cie. Some brands even launched all-new products at DWW. MB&F;, for instance, launched its headline creation for the year, the HM11, at the event. As Director General of DWW, Hind Seddiqi is one of the individuals who makes DWW possible. We discussed with her vision for DWW, ranging from its emphasis on independent watchmaking to the future of horological education in the region, which includes a WOSTEP watchmaking academy in Dubai. The interview was edited for length and clarity. The MB&F; HM11, one of the watches launched during DWW SJX: I remember the first Dubai Watch Week was inside the mall. Now it’s a separate setup that’s impressive. And even though it’s grown, I like the fact that you retain all the independents. Hind Seddiqi (HS): [Indpendents are] extremely important and if you enter into the [fair] in the afternoons you will see they’re the ones who are the busiest with customers wanting to meet the watchmakers. SJX: How do the independents relate to...

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Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Hybris Mechanica Calibre 185 Quadriptyque: 11 Complications (Plus Flying Tourbillon) are Impressive, But the Fact that it’s So Wearable is The Real Magic - Reprise Quill & Pad
Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Hybris Mechanica Calibre Nov 18, 2023

Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Hybris Mechanica Calibre 185 Quadriptyque: 11 Complications (Plus Flying Tourbillon) are Impressive, But the Fact that it’s So Wearable is The Real Magic - Reprise

It wasn't until Ian Skellern had the opportunity to handle the four-faced Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Hybris Mechanica Calibre 185 for himself that he understood the sheer scale of JLC’s achievement and gazed in newfound awe. Even though he had read the dimensions of Calibre 185, they were just numbers: in reality, it was much smaller and more wearable than he was expecting. Calibre 185 is by no means a small watch, but, as he reports, it is small for the sheer amount of complications packed inside.

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[Hands-On] H. Moser Refines Streamliner with New Small Seconds Blue Enamel Worn & Wound
H. Moser Refines Streamliner Nov 17, 2023

[Hands-On] H. Moser Refines Streamliner with New Small Seconds Blue Enamel

H. Moser made waves with their Streamliner watch when it was first released in 2020 thanks to the unconventional case and integrated bracelet design. In a market flooded with integrated bracelet sport watches, the Streamliner somehow manages to stand apart with its scale-like bracelet. It’s a watch we’ve taken a closer look at here, and here. This year, the Streamliner takes a new form in a move toward a more wearable experience in the form of the Small Seconds Blue Enamel. The result is a 39mm watch with a revised case and bracelet design that remains true to the original DNA while being far more wrist-friendly in the process.  The Streamliner has always been defined by its bracelet, with the cushion case transitioning to a dial with largely minimal takes on complications from perpetual calendars to chronographs. The newest addition adjusts the proportions of everything just enough to make a tangible difference on the wrist, without compromising the impact of the shapes and forms at work. In fact, the bracelet is in peak form with this release, combining the dramatic architecture with a silky taper that works incredibly well in practice. What’s more, the tweaks reduce some of the tension between the shoulder of the case and bracelet integration, making for an overall more graceful appearance. That said, if you were never a fan of the Streamliner, this new example isn’t likely to change that. This is still a Streamliner through and through, and fans of the watch l...

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New: IWC Pilot’s Watch Performance Chronograph 41 AMG and Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One™ Team Deployant
IWC Pilot’s Watch Performance Chronograph Nov 16, 2023

New: IWC Pilot’s Watch Performance Chronograph 41 AMG and Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One™ Team

IWC Schaffhausen releases the latest iteration of their Pilot’s Watch, the Pilot’s Watch Performance Chronograph 41. The Pilot’s Watch now comes with tachymeter scales dedicated to it’s long time motorsports partners AMG and the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team. The AMG variant in Titanium and the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team in their proprietary Ceratanium®Read More

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Recent Limited Editions: MAEN and BOLDR Creations with Worn & Wound Worn & Wound
Boldr Creations Nov 9, 2023

Recent Limited Editions: MAEN and BOLDR Creations with Worn & Wound

It’s been a busy year here at Worn & Wound and the Windup Watch Shop, and one of the most enjoyable aspects of being in this space is the ability to get creative and collaborate with our partners on exciting new products. Limited Editions, or LEs, allow creative juices to run wild while conceptualizing something on a smaller scale for those who are in the know. They also provide avenues for new folks to join the hobby and for everyone to have the chance to own something extra special. Two of our recent LEs are the MAEN x Worn & Wound Manhattan and the BOLDR x Worn & Wound 3xT GMT. Offered at similar price points, these are two very different but equally intriguing collections – let’s take a closer look. It’s been a busy year here at Worn & Wound and the Windup Watch Shop, and one of the most enjoyable aspects of being in this space is the ability to get creative and collaborate with our partners on exciting new products. Limited Editions, or LEs, allow creative juices to run wild while conceptualizing something on a smaller scale for those who are in the know. They also provide avenues for new folks to join the hobby and for everyone to have the chance to own something extra special. Two of our recent LEs are the MAEN x Worn & Wound Manhattan and the BOLDR x Worn & Wound 3xT GMT. Offered at similar price points, these are two very different but equally intriguing collections – let’s take a closer look. The post Recent Limited Editions: MAEN and BOLDR Creations ...

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Inside Vortic as they Launch the Colorado Watch Company Worn & Wound
Rado Watch Company Sep 26, 2023

Inside Vortic as they Launch the Colorado Watch Company

The story of American watchmaking is long, complex, and undertold. It’s regrettably easy to consign the period of this country’s history as a global titan in watch production to an appendix in the greater history of watchmaking writ large. But the fact remains that the United States, in the 19th century and well into the 20th, produced millions of timepieces at an incredible pace, developing manufacturing technologies that would scale and improve both here and abroad. We don’t make watches at such a scale anymore, but there is a growing movement in the American watchmaking space that looks to that period as inspiration, and as a reminder that if it can happen once, it can happen again. The Vortic Watch Company is one of the key players in a new age of watchmaking in America, and they’ve just announced a major step forward that redefines what the company does, and where it might be heading in the future.  I have always thought of Vortic as one of the bedrock companies in the burgeoning microbrand space. They are a mainstay at Windup Watch Fairs, and carry many of the hallmarks of the most successful and well established microbrands. The watches are original and purely their own thing, their team is accessible, and the identity of the brand itself is well considered and established. But it would be incorrect to think of them as purely part of the pack, or even as part of an upper tier of the pack given their longevity and success. They occupy a truly unique niche th...

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Track Time With Three New Seiko Chronographs - Now In The Windup Watch Shop Worn & Wound
Seiko Chronographs – Now Aug 14, 2023

Track Time With Three New Seiko Chronographs - Now In The Windup Watch Shop

There’s a place in any watch collection for a solid chronograph. There’s something so fun about having a little stopwatch on your wrist to track time. Even if you’re not using the commonly-seen tachymeter bezel to calculate speed, you’ll find yourself using it for countless tasks throughout the day. It can be really handy to know how long that meal’s been on the stove, or how long you’ve been letting that french press sit. Today, we have three new chronographs in the shop from Seiko. Two of the three feature quartz movements, while the other features a convenient and reliable solar chronograph. Let’s take a look at these exciting releases from Seiko that we’re thrilled to offer in the Windup Watch Shop. There’s a place in any watch collection for a solid chronograph. There’s something so fun about having a little stopwatch on your wrist to track time. Even if you’re not using the commonly-seen tachymeter bezel to calculate speed, you’ll find yourself using it for countless tasks throughout the day. It can be really handy to know how long that meal’s been on the stove, or how long you’ve been letting that french press sit. Today, we have three new chronographs in the shop from Seiko. Two of the three feature quartz movements, while the other features a convenient and reliable solar chronograph. Let’s take a look at these exciting releases from Seiko that we’re thrilled to offer in the Windup Watch Shop. The post Track Time With Three New Se...

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21 Small Dive Watches for Men and Ladies, from Under $100 to $10,000 Teddy Baldassarre
May 10, 2023

21 Small Dive Watches for Men and Ladies, from Under $100 to $10,000

Dive watches, as many of their enthusiasts know, are not generally known for being understated in their dimensions. This is, of course, by design, and in the service of both legibility and safety. To be used underwater, often in very dark conditions, a watch needs to be sizable enough (as well as luminous enough) for the wearer to discern both the time on the main hands as well as the remaining immersion period as set on the dive scale bezel. For these and other practical reasons, most watches built for diving tend to come in at 40mm and above in diameter. However, as the dive watch has become more a fashion statement and less a wearable tool - for ladies as well as gents - watchmakers have responded by downsizing some of their popular divers to offer more choices for a wider range of wearers, including those who will likely never wear their timepiece underwater. In some cases, the designs of these more modestly sized dive watches are even drawn from the brands’ archives, from historical eras in which smaller sizes were the norm, even for purpose-built tool watches like those made for divers. Using a 40mm diameter as our upper limit of “small,” here are 21 small dive watches, in ascending order of price, all of which combine professional-grade water resistance (at least 100 meters) with unisex appeal. Vostok Amphibia Price: $99, Case Size: 39mm, Thickness: 15mm, Lug-to-Lug: 49mm, Crystal: Acrylic, Water Resistance: 200m, Movement: Automatic Vostok Caliber 2416 Th...

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Kudoke Introduces the Kudoke 3 SJX Watches
Mar 27, 2023

Kudoke Introduces the Kudoke 3

German independent Kudoke has carved out its own niche with a distinctive blend of English-inspired movements and Germanic attention-to-detail in its Handwerk line of watches. The latest addition to the line is the Kudoke 3, which largely sticks to the successful formula of prior models, but offers a twist in the form of a split-level dial and triple-scale hour display. Once known primarily for ostentatiously skeletonised Unitas calibers, such as the watch worn by Dominic Monaghan’s character in Last Looks, Kudoke hit the reset button in 2019 with Handwerk line comprised of the Kudoke 1 and 2. The collection introduced a more restrained design aesthetic and importantly, brand’s first proprietary movement. The Kudoke 3 continues down this path, but goes further in terms of creative design. The Handwerk collection (from left): Kudoke 1, Kudoke 2, and Kudoke 3 Initial thoughts As a fan of modern German (and historical English) watchmaking, I’ve been impressed with the brand’s work since the launch of the Kudoke 1. Like Habring² and Laine, Kudoke offers a compelling alternative to mass-produced luxury watches. The Kudoke 3 is a thoughtful and unconventional addition to the Dresden-based brand’s growing collection, offering a novel time display with three scales for the hours along with a three-armed hour hand. This triple-scale calls to mind the distinctive seconds register of the 1990s Daniel Roth tourbillon (recently reborn as the Tourbillon Souscription), but ...

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Happy Birthday, Swatch Worn & Wound
Casio ns but Mar 3, 2023

Happy Birthday, Swatch

Swatch, the brand that is just about everyone’s first watch, celebrated their 40th birthday this week. On March 1, 1983, Swatch unveiled its first collection of plastic cased, battery powered watches, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that it just might have saved the Swiss watch industry. After a long period of dominance in the mass production of watches, quartz watches made by Japanese companies at a massive scale radically changed the watchmaking landscape, putting the traditional mechanical watchmaking industry into something of a tailspin. The massive success of Swatch through the 80s and into the 90s injected cash and enthusiasm into Swiss watchmaking that the industry still benefits from to this day.  We write about anniversaries all the time in these pages. As we’re all fond of saying, “Every year is an anniversary year.” But in the coverage of the big Swatch 4-0 that I’ve seen this week, I’ve much more commonly heard it referred to as a “birthday,” and I think that’s important. Anniversaries can be joyous occasions, but the word implies a certain seriousness that isn’t right for Swatch. A birthday is different. It’s fun, there’s cake, and hopefully some color. That’s how I think of Swatch (minus the cake).  Swatch and I are just about the same age. I turned 40 in October of last year, and it’s interesting to think about the brand approaching middle age, as I, much to my dismay, seem to be doing as well. Does Swatch also have naggi...

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5 Times a Watch Surprised Me After the Fact Worn & Wound
IWC Tribute Jan 11, 2023

5 Times a Watch Surprised Me After the Fact

Watches can be tricky things to judge without getting some real world wrist time. Details like their scale or finishing details can be lost in even the best of images, and that’s to say nothing of more intangible things, like their heft or the way the bracelet wraps around your wrist. Try as we might, we still sometimes end up writing a watch off, or worse still, prematurely lauding it, before allowing enough hands-on time to appropriately confront our biases. These watches have a way of coming back to us, and like many things in life, a way of surprising us after the fact. With each example, we hope to learn a bit more about our blind spots, and take a bit more pause when scouting the landscape ahead.  These are some examples of watches that surprised me after their initial launch, and what I learned from the experience. Jump into the comments below to share your thoughts and experiences. The IWC Tribute to 3705: Learning to Ignore the Numbers IWC has ridden their Pilot and Big Pilot ranges heavily in recent years, and while I enjoy the aesthetic of these watches, I’ve never been fond of the on-wrist experience with any of them. When I first saw the Tribute to 3705, I was quick to dismiss it based on some of the numbers, predominantly the thickness measurement north of 15mm. But then I got my hands on one, and it was the watch that triggered a reassessment of how I think about the numbers around watches. I even wrote an article implying you to do the same. The Tribut...

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Up Close: Blancpain Villeret Tourbillon Heure Sautante Minutes Rétrograde SJX Watches
Blancpain Villeret Tourbillon Heure Sautante Dec 15, 2022

Up Close: Blancpain Villeret Tourbillon Heure Sautante Minutes Rétrograde

While Blancpain is best known for its retro dive watches and triple calendars, the brand’s catalogue includes a surprisingly broad range of complications, especially for a brand of its scale (but the fact that the brand is part of Swatch Group clearly helps). One of its most interesting recent complications is the Villeret Tourbillon Heure Sautante Minutes Rétrograde, the first Blancpain watch with either a jumping hours or retrograde display. Despite the lengthy name, the Tourbillon Heure Sautante Minutes Rétrograde, from now on simply THSMR, is a simple watch on its face, but one executed in an elaborate manner with details that speak to its quality. The dial is champlevé enamel with a symmetrical time display and “floating” flying tourbillon, while the movement has a six-day power reserve and bridges finished with guilloche. Initial thoughts Unlike most of Blancpain’s complications that formal and busy, the THSMR is an elegant watch with an almost minimalist design. The fired enamel dial has a figure-of-eight display that gives it almost perfect symmetry, except for the charmingly quirky hour window that is off-centre but just right. And up close the tourbillon appears to be “floating” thanks to a clear sapphire lower bridge. It is a fairly large watch as most Blancpain watches now are, though it’s not too thick at just over 11 mm high. But the size is grounded in its mechanics: the cal. 260MR is a sizeable movement with an impressive six-day power r...

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