Crime or Sublime: Wearing a SUPER colourful watch
Some colourful watches are so loud they threaten to leave you with tinnitus. But is a brightly hued timepiece just a harmless switch-up that offers a bit of fun and welcome variety? Or is a super colourful watch an unforgivably gaudy choice that’s designed for look-at-me narcissists and the stylistically insane? Luke Benedictus and Nick Kenyon argue it out. Luke Benedictus – The For Argument OK, let’s do a little experiment. Look down at the clothes that you’re wearing right now. If you’re anything like 90 per cent of the male population, I predict the overriding palette is glum. Personally, I find myself wearing two different shades of navy “enlivened” with a pair of black shoes. Somehow my wardrobe has become the tonal equivalent of listening to Joy Division in the rain. This isn’t unusual either. As men we tend to get imprisoned into blue, grey, black and beige – perhaps a dash of maroon when we’re feeling really crazy. Timidly, we subscribe to the sartorial advice of the political satirist P.J. O’Rourke: “Never wear anything that panics the cat.” How do we break free of this tyranny? Well, the most accessible solution — without looking like a Teletubby — is…
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What was last week a meme is now no joke. The next Bond film has been postponed from April to November, because, as the saying goes, this is no time to die. Other London events — such as the London Book Fair, which attracts 25,000 attendees — have also been axed amid Coronavirus fears. Pundits associated with two James Bond fan sites — MI6-hq and The James Bond Dossier — wrote an open letter to the studios behind the film, urging them to follow global shutdowns and put safety first. The letter points out some interesting facts. It says: “China and Japan have closed theatres for weeks. The Chinese box office in January and February 2019 combined to $1.5b USD. The same period this year has netted just $3.9m — a 99.7% drop.” They go on to point out that the Royal Albert Hall venue for the London launch exceeds the 5000 people limit imposed by other affected countries, and poses a risk. “Just one person, who may not even show symptoms, could infect the rest of the audience.” When the world’s biggest Bond geeks are asking for a film to be delayed, you know things are real. The official James Bond…
“To boldly go where no man has gone before …” For most people, that’s just a hackneyed line from Star Trek. For Victor Vescovo, it’s become a personal mission. Put simply, the American private equity investor is hell-bent on pushing his limits. He’s the first man to have reached the deepest points of four of the Earth’s five oceans, plumbing a world record depth of 10,925 metres when he made it to the bottom of the Challenger Deep last year. Having previously summited Everest, the 54-year-old is now the only man to have ever travelled to the planet’s starkest extremities. But the two experiences were wildly different, Victor explains. “Climbing Everest is such a visceral, almost violent experience, because it’s such punishment for your body, physically and mentally. When you get to the summit, you get this massive sense of relief and accomplishment. But the sense of danger is also there because you still have to get down. “Getting to the bottom of the Challenger Deep wasn’t anywhere near as physically intense because I was safely cocooned in a titanium sphere. But mentally it was much more insidious. That came from knowing that I was so far down. I went down…
The team have physically and emotionally recovered from the first round of Battle Royale, which saw a war of words fit for a Grecian epic tale. This week, the team are back in the cage to make their case for their favourite piece from the Hublot Big Bang collection, a family of watches that has just about everything you might ever desire in a wristwatch. Without further ado — draw swords! James’ choice – the Hublot Big Bang Unico Full Magic Gold This Big Bang typifies why many consider Hublot to be at the pointy end of the horological spear when it comes to material innovation. Not only have the wunderkind managed to create a new precious metal that looks unique, but “Magic Gold”, as a result of being a proprietary blend of 18k yellow gold and ceramic, is also robust and very scratch resistant. This means that you could conceivably daily wear this timepiece without fear of errant door jams or whatever scratching it … which is a good thing, because it’s got an RRP of $48,300 big ones. At 42mm, it’s also the most appropriately sized Hublot for my lissom wrists, and like most Hublots, it comes on…
Last week, Zenith and Revolution magazine, as well as sister publication The Rake, dropped this – the El Primero A3818 Revival “Cover Girl”. This watch is a dead ringer for the original El Primero “Cover Girl”, so-called because it was the watch featured on the cover of Manfred Rössler’s book Zenith: Swiss Watch Manufacture Since 1865. The Cover Girl is considered to be one of the rarest and most desirable iterations ever to carry the El Primero moniker, with less than 1000 thought to exist. Hot watch. Retro perfection. Ladder bracelet. These are the three things we’re digging about the Zenith X Revolution El Primero A3818 Revival. But first, can you get one? Be quick. This new model will be limited to just 100 pieces in total, with half the allotment going directly to Revolution and The Rake, while the other half will be sold exclusively through Zenith boutiques across the globe. The Dial The satin-brushed petrol blue dial of this watch is goddamned gorgeous. It’s also somewhat of a rarity within the El Primero collection, seeing as that most of the iconic chronograph-equipped timepieces feature contrasting coloured sub-dials. The A3818 Revival well and truly bucks this trend, keeping the same…
We all have those knick-knacks lying around that get forgotten. Dried-up sharpies, matchboxes, and screwdrivers are the common offenders in my household, however there had always been one outlier. A small, unassuming wristwatch had been sitting in an antique drawer for at least 20 years. Freshly into my 20s, I landed a job that meant I couldn’t have my phone on me for the length of the shift, and there was hardly a clock in sight. I had the very new issue of a watch being a necessity, so I went and found the cheapest watch I could get. After two weeks, what had cost $10 became worthless when the hour, minute and seconds hands all snapped off. Suddenly, I remembered the stopped watch in the drawer. To my surprise, when I rummaged it out of the mess of cables and foreign coins, I actually recognised the brand. An Omega Seamaster. Although I knew little about it, I knew it was special. I asked my dad if he remembered any details, and he said my great-grandfather had bought it. That’s about it. Being a DIY-oriented person, I launched myself into research in an attempt to fix it. I quickly realised…
Franck Muller is known as the Master of Complications, and for good reason. Almost none of the watches produced by the Genevan watchmaker are straightforward, with watches that run backward, hour hands that jump around the dial, and a host of other marvels of mechanical engineering that both surprise and delight. This flair for the complex is seen clearly in the Franck Muller Master Banker collection, a family of watches with a tonneau-shaped case that houses a movement capable of showing three time zones at once – perfect for the international finance professional tracking the global markets. The elegant curves of the barrel-inspired case shape comfortably wrap around the wrist, and despite the 44mm x 53.7mm specifications, would wear comfortably on the wrist of a suited money manager. The inspired movement design is evident from the two sub-dials placed at 6 and 12 o’clock, which both offer a pair of hands that track the hours and minutes of independent time zones from the centrally mounted main handset. This three-fold timekeeping function is also remarkably simple to use, only requiring the single crown on the left-hand side of the case to operate. Offering even greater insight into the complexity and intricacy…
If you missed Part I of the Aldis Hodge interview yesterday, you can find it right here. In Part 2, we get to the core of it. What is Aldis Hodge doing in watchmaking? How did he start? And where is the journey going? Lastly, perhaps most importantly, WHEN will see watches with ‘Aldis Hodge’ or some such variant, on the dial? Settle in, put the kettle on, or decant a bottle of good red. Here is your Tuesday-long-read. Enjoy. So many questions, all orbiting around a central one; how the hell did Aldis Hodge get so deep into watches? It turns out it’s a hard one to properly answer; It starts with his mother, and one of those sayings mothers say: “‘I remember my mom jokingly saying that the mark of a good businessman was good shoes, a good suit and a good watch'”. I thought, I can get the shoes and a suit, but I can’t get the watch. My mentality for certain things, because money wasn’t always available, was that if I like it I would have to make it in order to get it. This is why I started designing my blueprints for my first house when I…
Last week, Nick Kenyon and Luke Benedictus got into a horological war of words over the rights and wrongs of the humble NATO strap. Luke took a defensive why-the-hell-not approach while Nick stuck to the purist’s line that some things must remain sacrosanct otherwise the whole of civilisation will go to pot. We then threw this head-scratcher out to the Time+Tide community on Facebook to canvas the views of the people. The results were mixed to say the least. “No, it’s naff like no socks with a suit and shoes,” insisted Martin. “If you still hold that a formal dress watch should be a slim, elegant two-hander… you just wouldn’t, would you?” said David. But other people took a more lenient view. “I think it depends if you’re trying to casually wear it,” said Jeffrey. “Some cases you can dress down a watch.” “Wear whatever you want, whichever you want,” agreed John. “No need to follow the heard.” The Verdict – Crime This week the poll on Instagram was much closer than the bloodbath last week, with the vote split 52% considering it a crime and 48% in the camp of sublime. Stay tuned for this week for colourful watches.
This weekend we were lucky enough to be visited by the fantastic team from the Horological Society of New York, who were in Australia offering watchmaking classes to a few very passionate Melburnians. It was an evening that also celebrated the incredible generosity of the watch community at large, which was shown through the recent Time+Tide Watch & Act! Auction to raise money for those affected by the devastating bushfires over this summer. A number of watch manufacturers, media outlets and even private collectors offered pieces for auction, which were enthusiastically bid on by watch lovers from around the world (32 countries to be exact) and would tally up to an incredible AUD$220K that would support both fire services and impacted communities. To thank those who donated watches, as well as those who placed bids, there was a gathering at Time+Tide Headquarters that would also offer one lucky attendee a ticket to the sold-out HSNY watchmaking class. It was a night of flowing drinks and conversation. And, unsurprisingly, there were some special watches in the room, and we managed to capture a few below.