"Watch & Act!" Auction Item – Lot 5: A Hublot Classic Fusion, made unique
Another watch conceived from scratch for the ‘Watch & Act!’ Auction, the Classic Fusion ‘Watch & Act!’ Unique Piece features a ceramic case, carbon fibre bezel and a shimmering blue dial. The case back is engraved with the words ‘Unique Piece’. Before we go on, here’s a quick primer on the Classic Fusion line: the collection, introduced in 2010, is intended as a slightly more subtle (dare we say dressier?) offering than the traditional Big Bang, while still possessing some of those indisputable Hublot hallmarks — the ‘H’ screws on the bezel, the solid end links on the strap, and those contrasting ‘ears’ on the case at three and six. It’s a softer Hublot, sure, but it’s still a Hublot. It’s also an incredibly stylish watch. The blue dial is lush, like a midnight sky. The satin-finished sunray dial is a wonder to behold, reflecting light all over the place thanks to the polished, faceted markers and hands, not to mention the rich texture of the dial itself. The colour is beautifully picked up in the rubber-backed alligator strap, with colour-matched blue stitch. And then there’s the case itself: 45mm of ceramic, a mix of polish and vertical brush ensuring…
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The Heritage Diver 1967 was released at the first Basel we attended as Time+Tide, so it holds special significance. It was also one of our favourite releases of the year, with its heft, heritage-correct styling and dashing colour scheme, it photographed beautifully and remains a solid submarine option in the truest sense. This watch is generously donated by Swatch Group Australia. Longines have got a lot of things right about this design, particularly on the dial. Sure, the original watch was a bi-compax chronograph with no date, but other than that, the handset is perfect (so ’60s), and the indices and dial text are just right too. But the element of the dial that can go unnoticed to the untrained eye is that all three sub-dials are different. This mixes the dial up in a good way, and by having the hour register at six blend into the dial, the design preserves the two-register look of the original. Clever work, Longines. The bracelet, while solid, excellently replicates the sort of thin, folded bracelet you’d find on a vintage piece. And the aluminium bezel, with dominant elapsed minutes and smaller hour indicators, is a rich red, somewhere between oxblood and cherry.…
In their second office fracas, colleagues Nick Kenyon and James Robinson do battle via the humble keyboard to settle yet another quarrelsome topic: In-house movements — are they brilliant and necessary in horology or, more often than not, disappointing and overkill? James Robinson – The For Argument Allow me, if you will, to begin this discourse with an analogy: let’s say that you’ve worked really, really hard for several years, and to reward yourself, you want to buy a special car. For argument’s sake, I’ll use the ubiquitous sports car as the example — a Porsche 911. Imagine walking into the dealership, finding your dream machine, walking up to it and just poring over every minute detail of its curvaceous flanks. Then one of the sartorial (if a bit sleazy) salesmen comes up to you and starts giving you the pitch. It’s a well-thought-out and considered spiel; he’s churning out facts and figures that make you giddy with excitement, eager to get off the showroom and out on to the open road. But then, the penny drops when he says, “Oh, and the flat-six engine is made by Toyota.” How gutted would you feel? Here’s this gorgeous, bespoke sports car and…
Sometimes you’ve got to face the bitter truth. Between small children, a house needing urgent renovation and a woeful inability to pick the winning lottery numbers, I can’t spend big on a new watch for the foreseeable future. Luckily, right now the “premium economy” end of the market is stronger than ever. Here are five watches that collectively add up to $18,740 from my $20K fantasy budget. The remaining $1260? That’s getting lumped on Powerball tickets to hopefully swell next year’s coffers. DOXA SUB 200 $1590 I’ve got a hankering for a no-nonsense diving watch that I can wear to the beach and this is top of my hit-list. A finalist at the GPHG awards in the “Challenge” category for watches under 4000 Swiss Francs, this sturdy diver boasts DOXA’s iconic beads-of-rice bracelet and highly contrasting lume-filled hands and hour markers. But the real deal-clincher for me is the cheerful yellow dial that’s guaranteed to nudge serotonin levels into a happy-clappy wonderland. Longines Heritage Classic $2775 You know those guys who end up dating a succession of alarmingly similar looking women? Well, personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that – they just know exactly what they like. So,…
One of the key pieces in Bulgari’s recent resurgence, alongside the record-breaking 50+ award-winning Octo Finissimo, the Serpenti Tubogas represents the height of feminine elegance. Note the serpentine Tubogas bracelet that snakes sensuously around the wearer’s wrist. It is offered here in 18k yellow gold with a silver opaline dial. This watch has been generously donated by Bulgari. Merging two of the most iconic symbols of Bulgari design, the Serpenti Tubogas evokes both the shape of a woman and the fluid coils of the serpent. This watch marks a distinctive chapter in the constant evolution of Serpenti. It features a 35mm 18k yellow gold curved case housing a quartz movement, set with brilliant-cut diamonds. Note the 18k yellow gold crown set with a cabochon cut pink rubellite, silver opaline dial with guilloché soleil treatment and hand-applied indexes. It is attached to the wrist with a single spiral 18k yellow gold bracelet. What we like about it Andrew – The Bulgari Serpenti Tubogas is point-blank one of the most elegant feminine statements in watchmaking, and having spent so much time around the model’s designer Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, I feel even more appreciative of the design genius at work. The standout for…
Hodinkee’s extraordinary run of sold-out limited edition models only became more of a water-cooler conversation topic when the 250-run of the Oris Divers Sixy-Five Limited Edition for Hodinkee was released, to be sold out in less than 10 minutes. The team generously offer one of their own brand new archive models of the highly sought Limited Edition to the ‘Watch & Act!’ Auction. Modelled after a design originally created by Oris in 1965, the Divers Sixty-Five model was introduced in 2015 and has become a mainstay of the brand’s heritage collection, offered in a range of sizes, dial designs and bezel materials. The Divers Sixty-Five Limited Edition for Hodinkee pares down the design with a “balance of go-anywhere ability and always-on-your-wrist versatility” as a goal. The real talking points here, apart from the perfectly tuned overall vintage aesthetic — that ‘ghost’ faded grey bezel is just sublime — and the speed at which it was snapped up, is the fact that this is the first Divers Sixty-Five to be manually wound, allowing the case profile to slim down slightly. The Divers Sixty-Five Limited Edition for Hodinkee is fitted on a tapered rivet-style stainless steel bracelet but also comes with…
The personal watch of Adam Clayton, bass player of U2, this Pioneer Centre Seconds is one of only three Pioneer models in existence without a brand name on the dial. It has not been polished and is literally ‘off Adam’s wrist to the auction’ – light scratches and wear marks remain. Adam has been photographed extensively with the watch, including the attached photo shoot in GQ Magazine. This watch has been generously donated by H. Moser & Cie with the blessing of Adam Clayton. The Pioneer is an extremely curious hybrid of a sports watch and a dress watch. The size, 42.8mm, makes it bolder and more suited to Australian tastes than a sub-40mm dress watch. And yet, little else apart from the striking, masculine lines of the case, mark it as anything like the sports oeuvre. The elegant dauphine hands, partially skeletonised, gives a sense of lightness and delicacy. The mirrored, bi-faceted indices, the calligraphic brandmark, the gloss finishing of the rehaut … they are all wonderful, nuanced touches that fit it firmly into the most desirable category of considered dress watches. Oh, and did I mention the dial? A ‘funky blue’ fumé masterpiece that can make a fool…
Unquestionably one of Grand Seiko’s most surprising releases of 2019, the SBGK additions to the Elegance Collection had all the makings of a perfect dress watch. There was just one problem, however — if I’m being really finickity, the dial options that were made available upon release were perhaps slightly out of keeping with that of a quintessential dress watch. Someone in the Japanese watchmaker’s design team clearly had the same feeling, because less than six months after its initial unveiling, we have this — the Grand Seiko Elegance SBGK007. I was borderline ecstatic when this watch was unveiled, and waited with bated breath for the press watch to find its way into the office, eager to find out whether the crisp white dial I’d seen in countless press images was as arresting in person as it was on my Mac screen. And now that I’ve been able to spend some time with this svelte dress watch attached to my wrist, I have to admit it’s a great dress watch … but it’s not exactly what I was expecting. Allow me to explain. The press release for SBGK007, as well as the product description found on Grand Seiko’s own website, characterise…
Continuing their creative collaborative partnership, luxury Japanese streetwear label Bape and Japanese watchmaker Seiko have just unveiled their latest limited edition creation … and we like it. Water resistant to 200 metres, this matt black marvel is, much like their first joint effort, sporting Bape’s quintessential “ABC” camouflage, which has been masterfully applied to the dial, as only to be expected of Seiko. Unlike the previous watch, however, this new timepiece has ditched the vibrant camo green in favour of a much more brooding and low-key black and grey colour palette. The dial also features Lumibrite hour indices and handset, prominent chapter ring and a day-and-date window, which can be found at the three o’clock position. The unique dial is capped with a Hardlex crystal, and the case back shows off an engraving that reads “A BATHING APE LIMITED EDITION”. Powering the limited edition timepiece is Seiko’s tried-and-true Calibre 4R36, a true workhorse of a movement that the Japanese watchmaker utilises in a number of its collections including the new Seiko 5 Sports series and the Prospex range. The self-winding movement features approximately 41 hours of power reserve, 24 jewels, seconds hacking and the aforementioned day-and-date complication. Shrouding the movement,…
Editor’s note: The last couple of years have seen a very distinct trend with the majority of Swiss watchmakers — the rise of the re-edition. You know what I’m talking about: re-edition, re-creation, reinterpretation … whatever you want to call it, vintage-inspired watches are the vogue right now. And I get it, a watchmaker looking to its past to help forge a bright future is great, and consumers get to purchase watches with real antiquated charm and flair, without trawling eBay, op-shops or thrift stores. But — and it’s a big but — all this hype around vintage timepieces has meant that we’re getting less and less fresh takes on what a timepiece should be. That’s why I’m so fond of the Oris Aquis collection. Here is a timepiece that is unashamedly from the 21st century, and it’s all the better for it. It’s not trying to hark back to the golden era of diving, or paying homage to a certain watch first seen 50 years ago. No, it’s just an honest-to-goodness, fit-for-purpose dive watch, and a capable one at that. A little while ago we had a look at this Oris Aquis Depth Gauge, and these were our initial…