EDITOR’S PICK: No Submariners with black tie – 5 tips for tuxedo-appropriate timepieces
Editor’s Note: Few stories have caused as much angst in the T+T office as Ceri’s searing, take-no-prisoners guidelines for what we can and cannot wear with black tie. Not only are our suits/shoes/cummerbunds not up to snuff, but it turns out our watches don’t cut it either. Read on and prepare to re-evaluate your formalwear life choices. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. First up, although we’re not here to get all pedantic on your suit, it would be negligent of us not to remind you of a few guidelines, slash hard and fast rules, worth bearing in mind. Pay attention, please: The rules part one – the suit 1. A regular suit is not black tie Your workwear is not black tie (unless you’re a butler. Wait – are you?). A sports jacket and chinos is not black tie. Get the right suit for the job, take good care of it, and it will last for years. 2. Your suit needs to fit That doesn’t mean you can’t buy off the peg. Just get it tailored once you do, so that the jacket hugs the torso, the sleeves show about a centimetre of shirt cuff and the trousers just brush the…
The post EDITOR’S PICK: No Submariners with black tie – 5 tips for tuxedo-appropriate timepieces appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
A three course, thoroughly French menu paired with Premier Cru Burgundy? Tick. A white-gloved waiter per guest? Tick. And a venue that Zelda Fitzgerald would have felt at ease in? Tick. Van Cleef & Arpels’ inaugural High Jewellery lunch in Sydney last week, at the private home Barford House, was a lesson in femininity and Place Vendôme heritage. The celebratory cavalry was out for the arrival of more than 80 high jewellery pieces. It’s the first such visit since the legendary Paris maison established its Australian presence, opening its Melbourne boutique last October and its Sydney flagship in February. This notable occasion drew Nicolas Bos, CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, along with Nicolas Luchsinger, International Retail Director/Director of Heritage Collection, and Catherine Renier, President of Asia-Pacific. A Parisian delegation in force. Set on the 5527-square metre estate, the mansion’s ground level salon housed a sparkling display including six women’s watches – canny distractions from the Bellevue Hill property that was valued at $60 million a few years ago, and has hosted Bono and Beyoncé. While the Lady Nuit des Papillons bracelet watch with sapphires and white diamonds was a dazzling competitor, the stand-out, unsurprisingly, was 2013’s Cadenas Pavée pink sapphire bracelet watch in rose gold.…
One of the keys to success for any watch brand is to have something instantly recognisable – a watch that can be spotted from the other side of a crowded room. Hublot’s Big Bang is one such design. With its large size and uncommon case shape the Big Bang stands out, and the Sang Bleu is no exception. In fact, as this new version is made from a sizeable lump of King Gold, it’s guaranteed to be noticed. But once you get a bit closer you might start to notice things starting to look a little different. The normally rounded bezel has been clipped into a hexagonal shape, and the hands have been replaced with discs, resplendent with geometric motifs. Sure, it’s still clearly a Hublot, but the tattoo-inspired Big Bang Unico Sang Bleu is quite unlike any we’ve seen before.
Editor’s Note: Few brands can match the scope and scale of Cartier. The Parisian jewellery house offers everything from the popular and modern Juste un Clou collection through to some of the finest bespoke jewellery made. The same is true for their watch collections. Tanks and Ballon Bleus might be the order of the day, but Cartier is also capable of creating some truly exceptional technical and artistic pieces. It’s the latter category we’re going to explore today – the watches made in Cartier’s Maison des Métiers d’Arts. It is impossible to overstate the importance of tradition to the Swiss watch industry. It’s a business, after all, built on skills and techniques that by all rights have no place in the 21st century. Watchmakers in general are a rare and special breed. Fewer still are experts in the more specialised artistic crafts such as marquetry and enamelling, which places these talents in high demand. Collectively these artisanal disciplines are referred to as Métiers d’Arts, and Cartier is leading the way in preserving and fostering these nearly forgotten skills through the Maison des Métiers d’Arts. Based in an 18th century Bernese-style farmhouse a short walk away from their main fine watchmaking facility, the…
Editor’s Note: A few years back I got on my high horse about my arms. Specifically the fact that because of their impressive (some would say excessive) follicular nature, there is a genre of watch that I can never truly enjoy, that of the fully skeletonised timepiece. To say that my original post was widely read by the industry is perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but it’s certainly true that some brands, like Arnold & Son, are offering prettily scalloped solid casebacks or smoky sapphire alternatives to reduce the impact of unsightly hirsuite-ness. I like to think I’ve played a part in that progress. Dear Swiss watch industry, We need to talk about skeletonised watches. There’s a problem. I get why you’re making them, honestly. They’re a great way to show off your skills, your impressive in-house capacity and clever movement architecture. And there’s no better way to house a tourbillon cage than by encasing it in nothing but sapphire. This all makes sense to me. But the naked truth, at least for a good proportion of men out there, is that these watches look ridiculous. No, I don’t mean the timepieces on their own. I mean, they…
When we evaluate a watch, one of our key criteria is clarity. Things like: Is the watch legible? Can you read the time in an instant? But clarity isn’t everything. There’s something to be said for mystery, and for artful concealment. And that’s exactly what makes the Montblanc Heritage Spirit Perpetual Calendar Sapphire so appealing. On the one hand, this watch lays itself bare, showing off the innermost working of the perpetual calendar complication. On the other, the use of a smokey sapphire dial adds just the right amount of ambiguity. The result is compelling. And, for an RRP of $30,890 in 18k red gold – so’s the price. 
We did not see this one coming. At all. You’re looking at a Tudor Black Bay Bronze, freshly decked out in a particularly regal shade of blue. Before you get on the line to your local Tudor dealer, you should know there’s a ‘but’: this isn’t a regular production Tudor. It’s a special collaboration with venerable jewellery retailer Bucherer, who have been trading in some of the world’s finest watches since 1888. This Tudor is the latest addition to Bucherer’s ongoing series, the Bucherer Blue Editions (which also includes blue timepieces made by the likes of AP, IWC, Piaget and Moser, to name a few). So, unless you happen to be near a Bucherer store, finding this blue beauty is going to be tricky. If you can manage to get your hands on one, we’re pretty sure it will be worth it – the Bronze looks incredible in blue. While the original is an exercise in complementary tones, the BBBB (or should we add an extra B in for Bucherer?) is all about contrast. The blue is rich and deep, just like the bronze of the case and bezel, giving the watch a completely different feeling – more luxurious, less utilitarian. The trademark…
If you love dive watches but don’t love the wrist-dominating size that typically goes along with the genre, you’ll want to pay close attention to Blancpain this year. Alongside new 38mm versions of the pared-back Bathyscaphe, they’ve also released a particularly hot limited edition – the Tribute to Fifty Fathoms Mil-Spec. Not only does this heritage-inspired little legend come in at a crowd-pleasing 40mm, it’s also got a funky-yet-functional dial decoration in the form of a moisture indicator. If that bi-colour circle at six changes colour, time to get your watch out of the water and into the service centre. But as you should know, there’s more to Blancpain than the Fifty Fathoms – there’s also a Villeret Day-Date, a good choice for an everyday wearer if your style sits on the formal end of the spectrum.
Editor’s Note: These days TAG Heuer’s contemporary new Carrera is a defined part of the watch landscape – coming in a wide range of colours and materials and decked out with diamonds and tourbillons. There’s even a slightly smaller 43mm version. It’s easy to forget just how surprising and ‘new’ this design was when it was first released back in 2015. This is what we thought then. The story in a second: The TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer-01 is emblematic of TAG Heuer under the stewardship of Jean-Claude Biver; a bold new look at a bold new price. The press release description of the Heuer 01 is “The backbone of the new collection” – it’s the first watch in a series that will do the heavy lifting in terms of changing the general perception of who TAG Heuer are and what sort of watches they make. And speaking of lifting, look at this thing. It’s never skipped a leg day in its life. In the metal, it is built. But marketing aside, this absolutely is the watch that embodies Jean-Claude Biver’s vision of TAG Heuer. In the words of Guy Sémon, General Director, the Carrera Heuer 01 is “the first opus…
If you’re an avid follower of our Instagram stories, you might have overheard my candid thoughts on the new entry level Nomos as we captured some scenic pre-Basel scene-setting. As Andrew live-panned a view of the Rhine, I could be heard distinctly in the background saying, “Ooh, new Nomos … huh, not sure about that.” The reason for my reticence (I’m typically effervescent about my favourite German watch brand) was the dial, particularly those two Roman numerals on the bottom half. First, some background on the Club. This round, slightly less classical Nomos has been a stalwart of their line-up for years. It’s always been billed as a watch for younger people, or your first ‘good’ watch. The Club Campus is, in many ways, the extension of this concept. The proposition of the Campus is that it’s explicitly aimed at students, whether as a watch to wear while you study, or as a tangible way to celebrate your graduation. What this means is that the Campus is a watch that’s been stripped back to the essentials in terms of both functionality and price. The Club Campus is offered in a white-dialled 36mm version and larger 38mm versions in white or…