A primer on the Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Collection, and why it gets us so darned excited
Editor’s note: Justin Mastine-Frost, while being full of energy as a human being, is not what I would describe as ‘excitable’. If you ever want Justin to hype something, he is — in fact — likely to go the other way. So when we brief the mighty JMF, we do not know what we’re going to get. Which is 100 per cent part of his charm, and his personal brand. Therefore, when his copy came in about the Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Collection, it caught everybody’s attention. He was excited, hyped, and making no bones about it. These are words of fire, that — while landing on a positive note — take many prisoners along the way. Take the second sentence of the story: “In this era of overblown, overhyped, and over-exaggerated positioning by brands and their marketing machines filled with a youthful and often naive ‘we are the next big thing!’ mentality, words like unique are thrown around with impunity pretty much every other day.” It’s like the final scene of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with Leo DiCaprio and the flame thrower! I’ll let the magic happen again in this Editor’s pick, one of our favourites from Justin, and a perfect summary of why —…
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Rado’s Captain Cook Automatic dive watch collection is downright impressive for anyone in the market for a fit-for-purpose dive watch on a budget. What’s more, it’s got a great amount of heritage — Rado has actually used the Captain Cook moniker since 1962. But these modern iterations aren’t resting on the laurels of their forefathers, they’re packing an aesthetic and technical blow that is hard to beat in the price bracket. For example, all of the watches feature glossy, vibrant dials that do a wonderful job of catching the light, offering wearers a charismatic, almost multifaceted personality. And the inwardly concave bezels, which adorn the svelte 42mm stainless steel cases, are capped with ceramic inserts, ensuring a superior level of scratch and fade resistance. Housed inside the svelte cases, which measure just 12.1mm thick, you’ll find another boon of the Captain Cook — its movement. All of the Rado Captain Cooks are powered by ETA’s monolithic C07 self-winding movement, which offers a staggering 80 hours of power reserve and a robustness and reliability that is only to be expected of a movement manufacturer like ETA. These timepieces are also more than capable of hanging with some much more expensive dive watches when…
The watchmaking mavericks at H. Moser & Cie. must be working overtime at their headquarters in Schaffhausen, because they keep dropping hit after hit in 2019. Their most recent creation is this — the H. Moser & Cie. Heritage Centre Seconds Funky Blue. Taking inspiration from both the horological creations of Moser’s founder, Heinrich Moser, and converted pocket watches from the early 20th century, the new Heritage Centre Seconds offers a distinctly inimitable aesthetic that seeks to seamlessly blend old-world charm with contemporary watchmaking techniques and technologies. The highly polished 42mm stainless steel case, for example, is shaped like a watch from the 1920s, with nicely rounded dimensions, slim, tapered lugs and even a period-correct fluted onion crown. However, the dial is signature 21st century Moser, featuring the Swiss marque’s celebrated electric sunburst “Funky Blue” colour scheme. The resulting creation offers a charismatic dichotomy between case and dial that shouldn’t work, but does. Similarly, the oversized appliqué numerals, sword-shaped hand set and “railway-style” chapter ring that adorn the Heritage Centre Seconds dial are all historically accurate, but they’re filled with both Super-LumiNova and, in the case of the numerals, Globolight, a pioneering ceramic-based lume that also utilises Super-LumiNova. The traditional-looking…
Science is very boring. For most people at least, and Michael Biercuk, who works as a quantum physicist, is far from most people. In fact, the phrase “Only boring people get bored” goes a long way to explaining why (if you follow the syllogism) Michael is deeply interested in a highly technical area that causes the eyes of most to glaze over, because he is also deeply interesting. I met with him at Dubai Watch Week, where he was a speaker at the event, and was fortunate enough to sit down with him and find out about his work as Professor of Quantum Physics and Quantum Technology at the University of Sydney, as well as being the CEO and founder of a quantum technology start-up called Q-CTRL. At the university, Michael is responsible for a research team who build quantum computers. “We build this next generation of computational machine that uses the physics we find inside very small things in order to process information in a totally new way,” he said patiently, clearly having explained his job more than once to people who are better with words than numbers. In a similar vein, his company Q-CTRL “specializes in making quantum…
It’s Black Friday and do we have an offer to dive for. If you’ve ever thought that just maybe the Longines Legend Diver in alluring matt black is a watch for you, then you have a couple of days to move and get a whole swag of cool Time+Tide merchandise with it at no extra cost. From now until midnight AEST Cyber Monday 2nd Dec, we are offering the following: The Longines Legend Diver Black Our super luxe Black Leather 2 Watch Slider Box A Large black Time+Tide t-shirt (printed logo) A Midnight Black NATO strap The price for this Black Friday Black Pack, valued at $4175AUD, is $3550AUD. Buy now in the Time+Tide Shop. About the Longines Legend Diver Black (RRP $3750) We’ve written a lot about this watch since it was released. For obvious reasons. It’s the first line extension of a Longines Heritage model. It’s the most successful Longines Heritage model ever. It’s 42mm, offers 300m of water resistance, PVD case, rock-solid automatic, glassbox sapphire and a sexy dual-crown super compressor style layout. Stealth perfection. About the Black Leather 2 Watch Slider Box (RRP $360) This velvet lined, French calf leather slider box handmade in Tuscany is the…
I recently had the privilege of attending an event with Seiko that focused on their Save the Ocean collection, and the work that can be done with the funds raised. While the event itself was an interesting blend of experience and information, I’ll explain exactly what the Seiko Save the Ocean collection is first. If you’ve ever been in a boutique that carries Seiko, while you were browsing the cabinets packed with their latest releases, you might have noticed a range of dive watches in the Prospex family with gradient blue dials that have an almost metallic quality. If you looked closer again at these blue-to-black fading dials, you would have seen an irregular stripe pattern, which was inspired by the lines that run along the bellies of humpback whales. It is these watches with gradient blue dials that sit within the Seiko Save the Ocean collection, and are made separate from the rest of the Prospex family, as a portion of the sales are donated to ocean conservation efforts around the globe. Aligned with this, Seiko are working with filmmaker Fabien Cousteau as an official Save the Ocean ambassador, who is also none other than the grandson of the…
Editor’s note: A perennially common question in the horological hemisphere is, “What is the next BIG future collectible timepiece?” It’s a pretty loaded question, and usually one answered with, rather obviously, nothing more than conjecture and anecdotal hypothesis. But, if we’re being honest, the best indicator of the “next big thing” is when there is a constant murmur in the wristwatch community about the same watch, a constant simmering of whispers that keeps on throwing up one model. That model is this, the ETA-powered Tudor Black Bay “Smiley”. Whether it’s the simpler ETA 2824-2 movement, the slimmer case, “Rose of the Tudor” motif on the dial, or a combination of all three, there are many, many people saying this is the next watch to go pop. As a brand, Tudor is a lot like Rocky in that Rolex’s little brother is a plucky fighter come good. Unlike Rocky, Tudor’s releases just get better and better with each passing year. Baselworld 2014 saw two big crowd-pleasing releases from Tudor, and a new range that is understated in the extreme, though still enticing. We’ll talk more about the Ranger and the Style later, but for now let’s focus on the undisputed star of the…
Martin Scorsese’s latest crime film, The Irishman, is released on Netflix in Australia on November 27. It is based on the book I Heard You Paint Houses, which chronicles the life of Frank Sheeran, a mafia hitman who claims to have killed Jimmy Hoffa, the former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union. Playing the title character of Sheeran is Robert De Niro, the Oscar-winning actor best known for starring in Casino, Goodfellas, Heat, The Godfather Part II and Raging Bull. Two other Oscar-winning actors play important characters in the film — Al Pacino portrays Jimmy Hoffa, and Joe Pesci plays Russell Bufalino, the head of the Pennsylvania Mafia. We thought it would be a good time to reflect on some of the interesting watches De Niro has worn on screen. De Niro has a fondness for wearing Rolex watches in movies and has done so on two occasions, in addition to a couple of other interesting pieces ranging from vintage to modern. In the 1978 war drama The Deer Hunter he wore a Rolex Sea-Dweller on an Oyster bracelet. You can see it very clearly near the end of the film, when he tries to persuade his friend to…
In a city as affluent as Dubai, it isn’t a surprise to see some pretty wild watches come out to play at the city’s own Dubai Watch Week. While there are some of the usual suspects to be seen, such as Rolex and Patek Philippe, Dubai also showed its sophisticated side with some less common contemporary pieces and even rarer vintage watches. So while I wasn’t able to capture anything close to the full spectrum of interesting timepieces donning the wrists of those wandering the exhibiting booths, this is a small smattering that shows just how varied and articulate the tastes of Dubai Watch Week attendees are. A piece from independent watchmaker F.Rozon. A powerful A. Lange & Söhne duo on the wrists of @mjbiercuk. A collection of watches shown at the launch of the FERO 150 Steel Chronographs book, written by Andrea Mattioli and Franco Basile.
Editor’s note: Jaeger-LeCoultre is widely regarded as one of the best watchmakers on the planet … and for good reason. The Swiss outfit has been responsible for more advancements and complications in the mechanical watchmaking world than pretty much any other manufacturer. And what’s more, JLC has made movements for some of the top marques in the horological industry — name a Swiss watchmaker and chances are JLC has made a movement for them. There’s a reason they’re called “The watchmaker’s watchmaker”. Most of the Jaeger-LeCoultre collection is made up of svelte, sophisticated dress watches, so it’s pretty easy to overlook the Polaris Date if you’re in the market for a steel sports watch, but you really shouldn’t, because it represents excellent value when you take into account what it has to offer. There’s a lot of options in Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Polaris collection. But I think this one might be my favourite — the Polaris Date. It’s a choice purists might find a little weird. After all, this is an uncomplicated watch, lacking either the classic alarm or the more impressive chronograph/world timer functionality. And while it’s not particularly complicated, it’s not entirely uncomplicated. I’m committing that most cardinal of watch nerd sins…