HANDS-ON: What a difference a dial makes – the Vacheron Constantin Patrimony Perpetual Calendar
The cool and elegant Vacheron Constantin booth at SIHH was packed with highly complicated pieces (including the most complicated piece), and their top-line SIHH releases were a mass of brain-bending masterpieces, heavy on the sonneries, sidereal time and celestial maps. But amid all this mechanical splendour I found myself coming back to a simpler – but by no means simple – option: the Patrimony Perpetual Calendar, in a pink gold case with a new, slate grey dial. The colour combination is all that’s changed, but sometimes a fresh new look is all you need to fall in love all over again with an old favourite. Until now this distinguished 41mm watch (which is quite slender at 8.96mm) was available in pink gold with a silver opaline dial, or in platinum everything as a special Excellence Platine edition. Both watches were exceedingly formal takes on a traditional complication. Very Vacheron Constantin. This version, though, is much more contemporary in look and feel – you might almost say it’s trendy. The contrast between the warm gold case and the cool grey domed dial is to die for, and the way light plays across the myriad of polished surfaces is more than a little…
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Just over a week ago we broadcast the first ever episode of Apples to Apples, where Felix and I pick two similar watches, flip a Swiss franc to decide which one we’re going in to battle for, and then argue for a couple of minutes. This is part A of the process. Part B is where you come in – because we invite all viewers to vote with their hearts, their thumbs or their comments as to which they prefer of the two watches. For the first episode, we pitted the Baume & Mercier Capeland Worldtimer against the Frederique Constant Manufacture Worldtimer. Click below for a refresher of the video battle, then scroll down for the results of our Facebook poll, as voted for by you guys. TOTAL VOTES: 751 BAUME & MERCIER: 604 FREDERIQUE CONSTANT: 147 Thank you for your votes, and see you soon for the next episode of Apples to Apples!
This year sees Montblanc introduce bronze into its watch collections for the very first time – and we have to say they’ve done it in an unusual and (as is typical for the brand) very smart way. With the exception of the high-end Villeret piece, Montblanc has avoided releasing full bronze-cased watches, instead employing the distinctive alloy in a much more tactical manner. In the case of the latest version of the 1858 Automatic, bronze is used on the bezel and crown, leaving the rest of the 44mm body in steel. Besides offering a very different take on two-tone, this approach is quite clever. The high-touch areas of crown and bezel will patina up quite nicely, but overall the watch won’t be as overwhelming as a full bronze case (which, we suspect, will mean it appeals to more people). The bronze elements aren’t the only vintage accents at play here – the black dial features the historic Montblanc logo, and numerals and hands painted in ‘bronze’ luminescent material. The final touch is the truly excellent strap, a supple cognac coloured calfskin number with double stitching in a style that has been very much in fashion among vintage collectors in recent years. Most models in…
Editor’s note: Whether they know it or not, anyone in a highly visible profession is likely to have their wristwear critiqued by a cadre of hardcore watch geeks. Politicans, actors and athletes are all fair game. Today in a special guest post, Paxton Wong casts his ever-watchful eye over the watch choices of some of the world’s best tennis players, just as the Australian Open heats up in week two. They say tennis is all in the wrist. Perhaps here is where the secret lies? Looking a little closer, players appear to be balancing the weight of the racquet in hand with a timepiece on the other wrist. Should make sense – right? Back in the day it was fashionable for a tennis player to wear a watch on court. Tennis was a gentleman’s game. Funnily enough, John McEnroe was associated with Omega’s titanium watches at a time. Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg wore Ebel, and they wore them when they played. Boris even wore a TAG Heuer Kirium, though these days he’s more often seen wearing IWC and the Cartier Calibre de Cartier Diver. For whatever reason, there’s always been a close relationship between watches and tennis. Perhaps it’s…
There’s a case for letting the dust settle before you start writing lists after a watch fair. You know, the fullness of time, emotions recollected in tranquility, all that. Or, you could just ride the wave of enthusiasm/delirium while it’s still surging and put it out there, on the spot, from the ‘backstage area’ of one of the booths. Which is precisely what we did on the final day of SIHH 2017 after some frantic notebook scribbling and hurried discussion. We ended up not agreeing enough to do a team list just yet (after all, we’re different people). So we stuck to five each. We’re quite sure that when we get home and start poring over all the photos and videos with fresh eyes that things will change. But until then, these are some piping hot croissants, fresh from the SIHH oven. And boy, are the watches (and our photographer Marcus’ shots of them) toasty. Enjoy with a cup of coffee.
No one was quite sure what to expect at SIHH this year, so it was a thrill to see Cartier getting on the front foot with a female-focused re-release of the Panthère de Cartier. First launched in the 1980s, it sat well with the cultural cues of the time: big hair, shoulder pads, Dynasty. Charlie Sheen’s character, Bud Fox, wore one in Wall Street. And one of our favourite photographs shows the Panthère on the wrist of a fresh-faced, blow-dried Pierce Brosnan, accessorised with a pinky ring and a luxuriant pectoral thatch, his top four buttons left undone, as was standard in the era. That, friends, was how you rocked a Panthère. The theme goes back way further than that, though. The big cat first slunk into the picture in 1914, when Louis Cartier – who was running the company at the time with his brothers Jacques and Pierre – commissioned a painting by French artist George Barbier, featuring a woman with a panther lounging at her feet. Just a few months later, the creature appeared on its first piece of Cartier jewellery, and ever since then it’s been an ongoing motif across both the brand’s male and female collections, with everything from watches and…
SIHH 2017 is a wrap. It’s done. After months of anticipation and speculation (along with regret for us Aussies leaving behind summer for subzero temperatures) the first watch fair of the year is behind us, the next one not too far away. But before we even think about the ‘B(asel)’ word, Felix and I want to share the moments that defined SIHH 2017 for us. You’ve seen some of the watches, you’ve probably had glimpses behind the scenes on Instagram and you’ve hopefully got the sense from us that the fair hasn’t been quite the doom and gloom many expected. Things are slowly, safely and steadily returning to business as normal, but very much a ‘new normal’, with some major corrections now absorbed. But the Friday Wind Down isn’t all business and neither was SIHH. Putting watch world machinations aside, here are three moments each that meant something to us. In the parting words of Vinnie Jones in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, “It’s been emotional.” And we make no apologies. It’s what happens after a 24-hour flight, and then five days of four hours sleep… Andrew moment #1 I was nervous about interviewing James Marsden for IWC – really nervous – because, as…
This year’s SIHH sees Baume & Mercier release a new, sportier take on the Clifton – the Clifton Club. This collection of robust, three-handed timepieces is made for ‘gentle sportsmen’ – which, if I’m interpreting the PR video full of people on boards (surf and skate) and bikes (mountain and motorised) means it’s a sporty go-anywhere-do-anything watch that would still fit quite neatly into your daily life. Presented in a range of dial and strap options, at its core this collection is a 42mm steel case, with a diver’s bezel and legible dial design, applied indices, a bold ‘Phi’ logo at 12 and contemporary hands. As far as things go, it’s a fairly conservative package, which works with a range of colours. It looks summery in sunburst blue, and far more stealthy when realised in black and paired with the matching black ADLC case. The strap options are good too – including a traditional three-link bracelet, a sailcloth textured ‘All Road’ calfskin number with contrasting orange details, and an unusual vulcanised rubber option with a central grille of vents. With 100m of water resistance across the board, a fairly slender 10.2mm profile, screw-down crown and amply applied Luminova, the Clifton Club plays it by…