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Founded almost a decade ago by Rémi Maillat, independent watchmaker Krayon has made a name for itself with its unique style, never-before-seen complications and meticulous craftsmanship. Unveiled in 2017, Everywhere, Rémi Maillat’s inaugural creation, was the first watch capable of displaying sunrise and sunset times everywhere around the globe. Then came Anywhere in 2020. A simpler […]
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Nalla Neram is a new brand established near Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and launched by a passion-driven watch aficionado, Krishnamani Raman. After a long career in multinational companies across different industries, his love for watches brought him to launch his indie brand. His intention is not just to present another watch, but to infuse his creations with […]
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Moon exploration has been a source of inspiration for generations, back in the 1960s with the Apollo Program. Of course, things stopped in 1972, but mankind is once again on its way to step foot again on the Moon’s surface, as NASA is preparing the Artemis program. Intended to reestablish a human presence on the […]
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Slightly overlooked and possibly in the shadows of the classic Seamaster Diver 300M, the Planet Ocean is the most capable collection of dive watches in Omega’s range, comprising models from 600m up to 6000m water-resistance (without counting the all-mighty Ultra-Deep that survived the Mariana Trench). Born in 2005, it will be celebrating its 20th anniversary […]
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The story of Citizen goes as far back as 1918, and the first pocket watch bearing the name was introduced in 1924. Today, the brand is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its flagship collection, The Citizen. It was introduced in 1995 as a line that is committed to the fundamental functions of a watch: “accurate […]
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As we will see in a few days in an interview we have done with the recently appointed director of Schwarz Etienne, Florian Brossard, the independent watchmaker is about to open a new chapter in its history, with revamped collections and great ambitions to meet with the incredible capacities of this manufacturer, one of the […]
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MeisterSinger, a German brand created by Manfred Brassler in 2001, and located in the city of Münster, Westphalia, has made a name for itself with its unusual display of the time based on a single central hand – a fine needlepoint that enables the wearer to read the time almost to the nearest minute, but […]
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The Maurice Lacroix Aikon collection needs little introduction. One of the first accessible takes on the concept of 1970s-inspired sporty-elegant watches with integrated bracelets, the collection launched in 2017-18 has expanded to incredible levels to integrate classic time-and-date watches, chronographs, ceramic models, openworked watches and even sportier Venturer editions. Some versions did catch our attention […]
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Swiss brand Breva Genève was founded in 2010 by Vincent Dupontreué. At one point, the brand garnered quite a bit of attention on the independent watchmaking scene with a series of original but niche complications such as a barometer, an altimeter or even a retractable speedometer! For multiple reasons, the brand unfortunately disappeared for a […]
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Pequignet was founded in 1973 by Emile Pequignet in Morteau, a French city in the mountains next to the Swiss border. The brand developed quickly in the 1980s and 1990s, but it has gone through its fair share of ups and downs in its 50 years of history. In the early 2000s, Pequignet initiated the […]
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With watches such as the Multifort Mechanical, the Ocean Star 39, or the Decompression Timer 1961, Swatch Group-owned brand Mido seems to be on a roll regarding dial creativity. Fun, colourful, original and bold, the brand’s latest creations stand apart with the use of unusual designs and clever application of SLN to add even more […]
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The revival of Ikepod has been met with a lot of enthusiasm, especially seeing the brand develop from ‘just’ another resuscitated name to a full-fledged return of the unmistakable and iconic Mark Newson design style across a range of collections. Ever since the takeover by longtime Ikepod-fan Christian-Louis Col, we’ve witnessed a return of the […]
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As we’ve seen recently, Orient, a Japanese watchmaker owned by the Seiko Epson Corporation, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. Created in 1950, it has since made a name for itself in the accessible segment with watches such as the Mako or the Bambino. There’s another important name that was created that same year; a […]
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Round, or square… That’s basically the norm for case designs in the industry, but there was a time where brands would experiment with shapes and designs to such an extent that genuine icons were created! Fortunately, there’s been a rather strong revival of unconventionally shaped watches in recent times, which we can only applaud. Watches […]
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What would you expect from a proper city car? Probably the answer to that question is something practical, reliable, agile, compact on the outside and spacious on the inside, cheap to run and so. Surely, you wouldn’t think “V8!!”, now would you? Well, the madmen of Aston Martin’s Q-division did think “V8!!” back in 2018 […]
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Today, there is only one Reverso, with Jaeger-LeCoultre printed on its dial, but this was not always the case. During the 1930s, Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin and Cartier made watches that used the Reverso case for their timepieces. Moreover, the 1931 Reverso was not the first reversible case design. A few years earlier, Universal Geneve […]
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Founded in 1853, Le Locle, Switzerland, Tissot is renowned for delivering quality Swiss-made watches at truly competitive prices. Sylvain Dolla took the helm of the brand in 2020, after leading Hamilton, bringing fresh energy to the brand – most notably, with the successful launch of the PRX, which has now grown into a complete, coherent […]
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A micro-brand that should sound familiar to you now, Kurono Tokyo is the brainchild of Japanese independent watchmaker Hajime Asaoka, known for his high-end tourbillons or chronographs. With this brand, Asaoka wanted to deliver his style and design ideas in far more accessible watches, without the highly complex movements, but with an equal taste for […]
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You thought you knew everything from Seiko’s immensely versatile archive? Well, think again, as this new King Seiko VANAC collection is a straight blast from the past that probably few saw coming! Based on just one of many designs that were part of the original Vanac models, first up is a set of five new […]
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About a year ago, a new micro-brand launched on the scene and caused quite some noise due to its oddly shaped, slightly overdesigned but rather appealing triangular watch, the Anoma A1 Watch. The project of a young French-British watch enthusiast, Matteo Violet Vianello, the watch made a sensation with a sculptural case playing on the […]
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Blancpain‘s long-standing ties to diving need little introduction. For over 20 years, the brand has been committed to raising awareness of the need to protect our oceans through the Blancpain Ocean Commitment (BOC) program. The latest BOC initiative is a limited series of 100 watches, the Fifty Fathoms Tech BOC IV, a more compact and […]
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Last year, Seiko updated one of its best-selling models, the classic, rather compact and vintage-inspired Prospex 1965 Heritage Diver, releasing a new collection with improved mechanics, reduced dimensions, upgraded water-resistance and a new bracelet – all the evolutions can be explored in this in-depth video. As you know, this watch is a modern recreation of […]
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This year, Seiko celebrates the 60th anniversary of one of its most important timepieces, its first dive watch, the 62MAS. While some would have expected the brand to come with yet another vintage-inspired re-creation of this historic model – it might come later this year – for now, we have a trio of new models. […]
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In 1965, Seiko entered the race for the best dive watch, much later than the Swiss did. Seiko released its first ever dive watch, known as the 62MAS, the mother of all upcoming aquatic watches of the brand. It’s a story that we’ve told many times on MONOCHROME. What matters most today is that 2025 […]
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Let me state something that I know will spark some people; as a watch-loving community, we’ve become far too negative in our opinions. Especially when it comes to social media, it’s easy to discard something you don’t like or even ridicule or bash. It’s a fairly common thing to express one’s (negative) opinion in such […]
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Watches, like most products from industrial activities, are ruled by constraints and compromises – whether these are commercial, technological, design-oriented or economical. This is why we, watch enthusiasts, can often be rather disappointed by many new releases. Surely, independent watchmakers playing in a much higher price range can overpass some of these constraints, as a […]
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Squale is often regarded as sort of a hidden gem of the dive watch scene, a brand that speaks mostly to hardcore divers and seasoned aquatic watch enthusiasts. Created by Charles Von Büren in 1959, who also made cases for multiple other companies (military Fifty Fathoms watches, for example), the brand gained fame thanks to […]
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The name Tank at Cartier means far more than just a watch… It’s an entire range of watches, all distinguished by some design elements first defined by the so-called Tank Normale of 1917. From there, the collection expanded to dozens of designs, such as the Tank Louis Cartier, the Cintrée, the Française and the Asymétrique, […]
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As you probably know by now, Audemars Piguet is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Last week, the Le Brassus-based brand released an array of new watches, predominantly focused on a new, clever and technically advanced perpetual calendar movement getting rid of recessed correctors (it is far more complex than you might imagine…) But that […]
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While the Prospex collection of Seiko tends to play on the serious side of things with pro-oriented tool watches, the Seiko 5 Sports range has been a great field for creativity for the brand, using it to create dozens of collaborative projects with brands, artists or franchises. Fun, accessible, fairly robust and with a design […]
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