INTRODUCING: MB&F x L'Epée x Massena LAB
How can a table clock be desirable? My thought process is well on the way to becoming coherent, meaning Sellable To The Wife. She has a background as a buyer in the oil business, so I can’t tell her that the need for a USD$27,000 non-wearable time piece is driven by desire. The title of my presentation (with PowerPoint?): How to justify the purchase of a USD$27,000 table clock with a T-Rex theme. Well, actually, just the skeletonised legs and one eye, but beautifully made … It will be made more difficult by her not knowing what Max Büsser and Friends signifies in my world of horology. Even my 26 years of sales training might not suffice, but I’m doing the pitch anyway. Some of us are stuck in small closets masquerading as home offices, and some of us are back in The Real Office. Let’s be honest, the time of day is there at the corner of the screen, but what if there was a hand-finished piece of art on the desk feeding your creative senses and invoking the history of Earth while at the same time telling the time? This is it. William Massena, the scion of Timezone…
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Within the thriving community of Seiko and Grand Seiko enthusiasts, some of the most highly prized watches are released only in the Japanese Domestic Market and the magic acronym you’ll hear more than any other in this community is indeed ‘JDM’. These JDM pieces might not be the most expensive, or limited in production numbers, but for anyone living outside of Japan they are highly prized for being tricky to get in other countries around the world. So how to get JDM watches out of Japan? It certainly isn’t impossible to add a JDM reference to your collection. You just need to know the best ways to go about it. We spoke with James Davison (@seikoman35), an Australian Seiko and Grand Seiko collector and dealer who shared a few tips to getting the watch that you want without too much hassle or paying too much. He is one of the co-creators of Two Vintage Seikos (@two_vintage_seikos), an innovative Instagram-based auction page that almost exclusively sells Seiko and Grand Seiko references that James sources directly from Japan. When I asked how best to get a JDM reference from one of the manufacturers, he offered two solutions. 1. Know a guy As…
In what could be seen as an appeal to Swiss watch collectors – or perhaps just those who prefer lighter watches – G-Shock decided to take their full-metal GMW-B5000 line to the next level. G-Shock has now introduced titanium into their lineup of square-faced design watches inspired by their historic G-Shock DW-5000C. I’ve owned mine for a month, and have plenty to say about it. Firstly, the case, band, bezel, and caseback of this model are all made of very lightweight titanium, weighing in at 110g in total (with their previous steel models weighing 167g). Producing the Full Metal line in titanium was no easy feat for G-Shock. According to Miho Nishimura of Casio’s Watch Development Department, this was not simply a matter of pouring new material into an existing mould and process. The titanium models required an entirely new mould, as well as its own dedicated assembly line, due to titanium being an unforgiving and difficult material to manufacture. G-Shock, in their pursuit of ultimate robustness, has also upgraded the crystal from mineral glass (used in the stainless steel versions) to a sapphire crystal and treated the titanium with a diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating that protects the watch from…
When browsing through high-contrast, black-coated, neon-highlighted luxury watches, it shouldn’t be too long before the name Bamford crosses your path. The origin story of the Bamford Watch Department starts with a Daytona. Taking advantage of his father’s corporation, JCB — which specialises in manufacturing equipment for construction, agriculture, waste handling, and demolition — George Bamford wanted nothing more than for his Rolex Daytona to stand out a little more. After consulting with JCB’s engineering department, George had his Daytona murdered-out in the Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coating, which has become one of his signatures, adorning customised Rolex, Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe watches around the world. With tensions growing between watch manufacturers and Bamford’s business, given the jumble of legal grey-areas involved in customising brand-name goods, Bamford Watch Department stepped back from tinkering with Rolex and other lofty brands in 2017 – a cautious but clever move considering the Rolex lawsuit with customiser La Californienne in 2019. Instead, Bamford-enthusiast and watch industry legend Jean-Claude Biver teamed up with the workshop to produce modded pieces exclusively from LVMH brands such as TAG Heuer, Bvlgari and Zenith. These are some highlights of the journey so far. TAG Heuer Monaco Heritage By far the most fun…
It’s been the case for centuries. Pioneers of industry pour plenty into R&D, stretching themselves thin to find that one small breakthrough that will separate them from the rest. It’s hard to imagine a modern TV without YouTube connectivity, a modern car without ABS, or a modern phone without the world at your fingertips, but once upon a time, features such as ceramic bezels were reserved for the upper echelon of luxury goods. Now, you’ve got yourself a nice new Seiko 5 Sports, and you feel like snazzing it up a bit with a ceramic bezel. Hop on eBay, browse the colours, and you can pick one up for less than $10 Aussie. How exactly did it come to this? Well, it’s been a journey. Broadly speaking, ceramic isn’t exactly cutting-edge technology, having been used by humanity at large for the last 26,000 years or so — but in the 21st century its usage has come a long, long way from the earthenware pottery of the stone age. Its immense hardness makes it an ideal material for knives, brake discs on race cars, and extremely durable ball bearings. Jaeger-LeCoultre took advantage of this by putting ceramic bearings in an automatic…
Bulgari has, for more than a century, been regarded as one of the finest luxury jewellery makers on this blue marble we call earth. Their expertise, attention to detail, passion and visionary design has resulted in some of the most stunning pieces of jewellery and objet d’art imaginable. As such, throughout the 20th century, the Italian firm’s creations were sought after and worn by royals, dignitaries, celebrities … basically, if you had wealth, power, notoriety or fame, you wore Bulgari jewellery. Then, at the turn of last century, Bulgari decided to try its hand at another discipline contiguous to that of luxury jewellery making – haute horology. They famously purchased Gérald Genta watches in 2000, and then went about honing their craft. And, within the first decade-and-a-half, we started to bear witness to the outfit’s high-end, in-house timekeeping creations. Watches like the revelatory Octo Finissimo Tourbillon and its manufacture Calibre BVL 268 (which broke the world record for the slimmest tourbillon movement ever created at just 1.95mm thick) were unveiled, and watch enthusiasts around the world started to pay attention. Since then, Bulgari has gone from strength to strength at the very top-end of watchmaking, and it has been truly exciting…
Often, it is incremental and deliberate design progress — slow to the point that the casual observer might not even notice it — that creates the best products. Tiny changes, layered on one another year after year, are the key to creating an unmistakable visual identity that stands the test of time. It’s a blueprint that is as simple as it is challenging to achieve. For the custodians of a brand to maintain a steadfast faithfulness to a design that might have been born a generation or two before, requires belief as much as it does an understanding that good design will often outlive us all. While good designs will likely have long lives, they all have a foundational period in their youth, and that is where the Bulgari Octo Finissimo is today. The heavily faceted octagonal case of the Finissimo was first seen in 2014 with the release of the world’s thinnest tourbillon. At the time it was a curious watch to make for a brand that was best known as a jewellery firm, but it was the first sign of Bulgari’s unrelenting watchmaking intent. Bulgari followed the thinnest tourbillon record with another Octo Finissimo record in 2016 — the…
Ever since its unveiling at Baselworld back in 2016, I’ve wanted a Rolex Air-King Ref. 116900 . And, perhaps rather oddly, I’ve yearned for this polarising watch even longer than that. Allow me to explain. Back in 2014, Rolex announced they had made a bespoke pair of dash clocks for what was formerly known as the Bloodhound SSC, a supersonic missile on wheels that aimed to break the outright land speed record and reach speeds in excess of 1600 km/h. I remember reading about the dash clocks at the time, and thinking to myself, “That is cool.” The fact that Rolex had gotten behind the project was utterly fantastic and, without wanting to sound overly gushing, it was downright inspiring to see that the Big Crown still supported those who dared to push the boundaries of what we previously thought wasn’t possible. I also loved the way the dash clocks looked – the archetypal Rolex green of the text, contrasted by the distinct yellow of the regal crown motif, and the unique looking typography of the Arabic numerals, was all such a radical departure from the watchmaker’s normal design language, yet it somehow worked. A couple of years passed, and…
Normally, when the name Transylvania is uttered, a certain fictional monster comes to mind. But for this week’s Micro Mondays, we’re taking a look at something hailing from the gothic region of Romania that doesn’t want to suck your blood … just your bank account. And not nearly as vociferously as many rival brands. Peren watches, short for the word perennial, is a micro watchmaker that aims to pay homage to the inimitable terroir from which it originates, while also embracing traditional avenues of Swiss horology. They haven’t been around for long, but the outfit has already released some great watches, such as the Nera, SOD and Classic. Their latest timepiece, the Hintz, is a field watch that blends timeless characteristics with a few unique twists, and honours one of Transylvania’s oldest watchmakers – Eugen Hintz. We’ve had this watch on our radar here at T+T for quite some time, and were very happy when Peren sent us a prototype, so we could go hands-on with the handsome timepiece. These are our initial impressions. The case Hewn from 316L grade stainless steel and measuring a larger than expected 42.5mm across, 11.2mm thick and 22mm lug to lug, the Hintz’s case…
Floyd Mayweather looks straight down the barrel of the camera as he waves around a watch that’s not so much dripping in diamonds as drenched to its blinding core. The watch is the Jacob & Co Billionaire watch, a one-of-a-kind piece produced with Italian businessman, fashion label owner and Formula 1 personality Flavio Briatore. The 47.5mm case and integrated bracelet are bedecked with 239 emerald-cut baguette diamond stones while a manually wound tourbillion beats within. Over the top? Yes. And then down the other side before spiralling into a high-speed blur of double loops. “Over $15 million or under $15 million?” asks Mayweather, the man commonly regarded as the best defensive boxer of all time. The question is posed as part of a new video series entitled “The Ice Is Right”. Sitting alongside celebrity jeweller Greg Yüna (AKA “Mr Flawless”, who we interviewed in this story), the video is part of a recent partnership with online sports betting company BetOnline.ag that showcases some of the most decadent pieces in Mayweather’s insane watch collection. Punters can bet on how much they estimate the true value of each piece of bling. (For anyone planning to wager, the price tag of the Billionaire…