As of today, you can buy Patek Philippe online. Will COVID-19 force more brands into e-commerce?
A crisis can often prove the catalyst for change. Amid the chaos, we’re forced to rethink how we do things — often with positive results. The First World War, for example, had a radical impact in redefining civil liberties, race relations and women’s rights. It’s way too early to untangle the full impact of the coronavirus on the watch industry. But there are signs the pandemic could push certain brands to reconsider their stiff resistance to e-commerce. Watch brands have always maintained a heavy reliance on selling through bricks and mortar stores. Morgan Stanley analysts estimate that third-party retailers account for some 90 per cent of Swiss watch sales. Direct online sales offer the alternative approach. Yet while some watch groups — notably Richemont and LVMH — have embraced online retail, most have only taken tentative steps into the virtual world. A report last year from the online marketing consultancy Digital Luxury Group found that only 40 per cent of luxury watch brands are presently offering direct-to-consumer e-commerce. In fact, online sales of luxury watches account for less than 5 per cent of all sales, according to The Mercury Project, a data-driven consulting company focused on the watch and jewellery industry. Three conspicuous…
The post As of today, you can buy Patek Philippe online. Will COVID-19 force more brands into e-commerce? appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
Media and watch collaborations: in theory, they should be a match made in heaven … and, let’s be honest, they almost always are. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, considering the people behind these industry hybrids are writing, reviewing and critiquing myriad watches every single day. We should know what’s best. And it turns out, we often do. Trouble is, though, there’s been more than a few released in the last couple of years, so narrowing down which ones are best can be hard. But that’s exactly what we’ve done. The crew at T+T, after an exhaustive conference call that lasted far longer than it should, have whittled down all the media/watch collaborations in recent memory, and chosen our favourites. Enjoy. Andrew McUtchen – TAG Heuer Limited Edition Carrera Skipper For HODINKEE What an atomic drop this was, and one of the few times a watch has been significantly bulked without blowing it. The original ‘Skipperera’ from ’67 — so named for its Carrera case — was only 35mm, and the Dink version clocked a more modern 39mm, with a domed sapphire crystal instead of the plexi on the original. The tri-colour layout of the regatta countdown sub-dial is where it’s…
We are only three months into 2020, and G-Shock have already been going hard — really hard. That’s right, not only have they released dozens of new watches across a range of different collections since the beginning of 2020, but many of those are pretty remarkable in their own right, some tracking heart rate or surf beach conditions, with others paying tribute to Kung fu legend Bruce Lee or representing streetwear label KITH. There is genuinely something for everyone, so let’s take a look at five of the coolest 2020 G-Shock watches. G-Shock X KITH GM-6900 Life is good when you look through rose gold tinted lenses. And that is exactly what we’re seeing with the new Casio G-Shock X KITH GM-6900, a collaboration between Casio and the streetwear retailer. The rose gold tone metal case is eye-catching, and it also has options to swap out different straps to easily match to your outfit. This one gets a rose gold medal. G-Shock GBD-H1000 This is an important watch in the G-Shock lineup because it would be making a play at the currently booming smartwatch market. That’s right, this watch has an optical heart rate sensor, a tri-axis accelerometer, pressure and…
Well, the results are in for the inaugural round of Celebrity Watch Death Match, and everything is coming up not just roses for Jay-Z, but “Rose Gold Concepts”. Which the man himself raps about in ‘Summer’ from the Everything Is Love album, a reference to his Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon Chronograph in 18KT Rose Gold. Hove smashed Drizzy across four categories by three winning watches to one, though things did get tight in the ‘Modded & Murdered’ category, where he prevailed with a margin of just six per cent, his Franck Muller modified Rolex just beating out the murdered and iced Nautilus. Dress watch to die for: Result: 87% for the Jaeger-LeCoultre and 13% for the RM. So there you have it, vindication for yours truly. Jay-Z’s Jaeger-LeCoultre Grande Reverso Ultra-Thin Tribute to 1931 Pink Gold Ref. 2782521 is such a good thing, as opposed to that fully iced-out, ladies RM with Cuban bracelet … talk about extra. Modded and murdered out mayhem: Result: Oooooh, just 6% in it, with Patek netting 43% vs 57% for the Rolex. A closer result than the blowout in the dress watch showdown, but still, let history show you were with me – I was on the…
George Daniels is almost universally recognised as the greatest watchmaker of his lifetime, and even if you haven’t heard of him, you might have seen evidence of his work on the dial of millions of Omega watches around the world — the words CO-AXIAL. His most significant contribution to watchmaking was the development of his co-axial escapement, the first serious step forward in watchmaking in more than 200 years, and was first put to work in the Omega De Ville Co-Axial Escapement Limited Edition. That’s right, not much had changed in two centuries before Daniels began his work. His co-axial escapement was important because not only did it improve the accuracy of a typical mechanical watch, but it also vastly improved the mechanical efficiency of the movement so that it would need less regular servicing. Legend has it that Daniels woke in the middle of the night with a complete picture of what the escapement would look like, but really it was the cumulative efforts of 20 years of work that led him to develop his invention. In essence, the co-axial escapement was successfully able to eliminate almost all friction between the pallet fork and the escape wheel, an improvement on…
When it comes to the dress code for our post-apocalyptic future, the Mad Max films wrote the rulebook. Essentially, what they prescribe is an “anything goes” approach involving heavy use of asymmetrical shoulder pads, harnesses, gratuitous cargo pockets and lots and lots of leather. The presumed rationale behind such get-ups is that, when you’re trying to survive in a dystopian wasteland, you wear whatever you can scavenge. But I reckon something else is going on here, too. When your circumstances become truly outlandish, the standard rules no longer apply. Forced to become more open-minded as life takes an unexpected turn, the conventional is replaced with the left field. Given that we’re all now adapting to unfathomable times ourselves (way to go, COVID-19), the decision to re-release the Hamilton Pulsar is perfect timing. The world’s first electronic digital wristwatch was presented to the world on May 6, 1970, in a press conference at the Four Seasons in New York. With no moving parts and an LED digital display illuminated at the touch of a button, the watch was like something out of science fiction. Which, in fact, it was — the Pulsar Time Computer’s idiosyncratic design was based on a concept clock…
Good news is about as rare these days as a Hodinkee Limited Edition, especially the cache of their Limited Editions they released at retail this week as a goodwill gesture. But we do have some to make your Friday feel a little less surreal. Two months after the ‘Watch & Act!’ Auction had its glorious conclusion, we were finally able to take that happiest of trips to the bank to get cheques to disburse to organisations that still need it on a day-to-day basis. Our CFO and I had a smile on our faces when we held this fistful of dollars, very briefly, before sending out. It was the highlight of the week. But on the site, there were plenty of story highlights to keep quarantined people entertained. James pulled in an absolute monster traffic result with his first and certainly not his last Celebrity Watch Death Match; Jay-Z vs Drizzy. Not only did people read it, they voted, enthusiastically. There were more than 3000 total votes on Instagram. For the winner, check out the wrap-up, which will be dropping tomorrow, and stay tuned for the second death match. It’s a doozy! Every Watch Tells A Story is a series…
This week we were lucky enough to have a number of the latest releases from Seiko and Grand Seiko in the office, and we put the call out to Time+Tide readers to find out the questions they had about these new pieces. If you missed the Q&A on Instagram stories (you can still find them in the Seiko and Grand Seiko highlights on @timetidewatches), we’ve collated those questions and their answers right here. If you had any questions on the new collection that you didn’t get to ask, don’t hesitate to send us a direct message and we’ll do our best to get back to you in person. So without further ado, let’s get into it. Which model are you most excited about? I was personally very excited about the Grand Seiko SBGW258, which is a sensational watch in the metal. The 38mm case is perfect, the dial is fantastically balanced, and seeing the logo that was used in 1960 is really special. The way the light plays with it is something you really need to see in the metal. Depending on your tastes, it could easily be a one-watch collection. Would love to hear about the SPB149J. This watch…
Have you ever bought a pre-owned watch? Do you know exactly where it came from? It’s worth asking yourself that question because luxury watches are wildly attractive to thieves. Not only do they command a strong resale value, but the fact that watches are small enough to slip into a pocket makes them easy to transport and move on to buyers who may have no idea of their stolen origin. As a result, it’s hardly surprising that watches are regularly targeted by crooks. As the following crimes show, there are unscrupulous people out there who’ll go to extreme and sometimes violent lengths to separate you from your timepiece – particularly, it seems, if you’re travelling to Paris … Rafael Nadal hit by Grand Slam scam After winning the 2012 French Open, Rafael Nadal climbed into bed in his five-star hotel suite in Paris and took off his Richard Mille RM027 Tourbillon. He placed the $US375,000 watch — which weighs less than 20g (including the strap) — on his bedside table and nodded off to sleep. When he woke up the watch was gone. The worst thing about all this? It wasn’t the first time the tennis player had fallen victim to a…
Unless you’ve been practising a technological and communications ban as well as self-isolation, you no doubt will have heard about the Unimatic x Massena LAB Modello Uno Ref. U1-ML6. But while the new limited edition timepiece garnered some serious press in the watch world, and all 99 examples sold out in less than one minute, a lot of you are still asking: “Who is Unimatic?” So, sit back, relax and allow us to explain. Established in 2015 by two Milanese natives, Giovanni Moro and Simone Nunziato, Unimatic is an independent Italian micro watchmaker like no other. Moro and Nunziato met while studying industrial design at Politecnico di Milano (Polytechnic University of Milan), the largest technical university in Italy. The duo quickly struck up a friendship and, as Moro explained recently in an interview with Gear Patrol, even started buying vintage watches together. Fast-forward a few years and Moro, after attempting a few watch designs himself, reached out to Nunziato with the idea of creating a timepiece together. What they came up with would become Unimatic’s first and most popular model – the Modello Uno. This no-nonsense dive watch presents a minimalist, almost Bauhaus-like design, one that takes inspiration from some…