INTRODUCING: Franck Muller Vanguard Crazy Hours Asia Exclusive
In what is a meeting of two of the most significant collections from the Franck Muller manufacture, the Vanguard Crazy Hours is an exciting offering, made even more exciting with the news of an exclusive collection for Asia. The Vanguard Crazy Hours is the first time the brand has housed the famous Crazy Hours movement inside a Vanguard case shape, offering a feel that is more sporty and relaxed, to a caliber that inspires a more leisurely approach to time telling. It achieves this with a dial layout that is less than conventional, where the hour marker numerals are out of order and appear haphazardly strewn across the face of the watch. In fact, the movement beneath the dial is calibrated for the hour hand to track the numbers in the correct order, despite them being out of place on the dial. The combination of Franck Muller’s trademark exaggerated numerals and this wistfully complicated movement forces you to pause for a moment when you look at a Crazy Hours watch, and appreciate that there’s more on offer than rushing to be on time as you hurry from appointment to appointment. Not to mention that it does take some practise to be…
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Editor’s note: Panerai are known for many things – a rich Italian heritage in watchmaking that dates back to 1860, steep aquatic history providing watches for the naval forces of many countries, most notably Italy and Egypt, and a quintessential design language that has spanned the better part of a century … the list goes on. What Panerai is not known for is making watches to pair with a suit-and-tie combo. In fact, something like a 47mm Submersible Bronzo is about the farthest thing away from what we’d want to don at a black tie event. However, Panerai’s Luminor Due is a collection of watches that can do just that, thanks to a diverse range of case sizes that start at just 38mm. Anyway, Time+Tide’s own Felix Scholz went hands-on with the versatile timepiece earlier this year, and if you’ve got the time, it’s definitely worth a read. HANDS-ON: A Panerai for the suit and tie – the Luminor Due PAM00943 It would be easy to dismiss the Luminor Due — Panerai’s latest fully fledged line — as a collection oriented towards women. After all, it’s the collection that houses 38 and 42mm watches. But the fact that I am on…
Editor’s note: I think it’s fairly safe to say that Gérald Charles Genta is the 20th century’s most notable designer of wristwatches. Many know the list of his accomplishments, but the sheer scope and impact of his unique and inspired design language is still sometimes difficult to grasp. Royal Oak, Nautilus, Constellation, Ingenieur, Golden Ellipse – the list of triumphs goes on and on. However, what many people don’t know is that, in the twilight of his career, Genta established his own watch brand, which was subsequently purchased by Bulgari. And when looking through Bulgari’s current and past collection of timepieces, it’s pretty clear to see the quite profound impact Genta’s designs had on the Italian jewellery and watchmaker. At the beginning of 2019, in order to pay homage to Genta and the five decades it’s been since the establishment of his watchmaking company, Bulgari released the Gérald Genta 50th Anniversary wristwatch, and Time + Tide’s own Mr Felix Scholz was fortunate enough to go hands-on with it. Few names loom larger in the collective consciousness of horological history than Gérald Genta. He’s one of the few individual designers whose name — because of the strength of his work —…
We’re heading into awards season for the watch industry, and they don’t come much more glamorous or glitzy than the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG), which is set to take place in — you guessed it — Geneva on November 7. There are 84 watches vying to be named best in show, and the competition is fierce. Unfortunately for us, the awards are also on the other side of the world, making it a bit of a mission to attend the big night. But your chances of being able to get up close and personal with the year’s best watches just became a little higher, as the competing watches have hit the road. And Australia is the first cab off the rank. The Hour Glass is to host the GPHG Exhibition, for the first time coming to Australia, at their Sydney boutique. The watches will be on show from 11am to 4pm on Saturday the 28th and Sunday the 29th of September. And while we’d encourage vigorous debate as to which watches should win (see our social media comments section for that), we’ve also picked a few of our favourite contenders out of the pack, and put together this…
A great watch should always get the recognition it deserves; however, sometimes that just simply isn’t the case. Whether it’s down to hyped timepieces being unveiled at the same time, the watchmaker in question not being particularly revered, or how the timepiece in question derives its source of power … there are myriad reasons why a new watch might not attain the right levels of attention. So, with all this in mind, we thought we’d share with you three timepieces that were released this year that you may not have even heard of, but should definitely be on your radar. Cartier Santos-Dumont One of my personal favourites from Baselworld 2019, the Cartier Santos-Dumont collection, and in particular the 38mm steel-cased example, is a timepiece that offers a genuinely impressive amount of bandwidth, especially when you consider that its retail price is a very reasonable $5200 AUD. Why doesn’t the Santos-Dumont get the love it rightly deserves, then? Well, I think it’s mostly due to the fact that the Santos-Dumont utilises a quartz movement, and there are certain enthusiasts out there that will always look down at a watch that derives its power from a battery and a crystal with…
James May, doyen of automotive journalism, presenter of Amazon’s The Grand Tour and former presenter of BBC’s Top Gear, knows a great many things about the mechanical innards of an automobile. It turns out that Mr May is also rather savvy when it comes to understanding the complexity of the technology that almost single-handedly and irreversibly destroyed the Swiss mechanical watch industry – the Quartz Watch. In this rather wonderful video made by the BBC’s Earth Lab, May goes through the engineering, history and application of Quartz technology. It may also interest you to know that May has quite the watch collection himself, having previously been spotted wearing watches such as a vintage Omega Chrono-Quartz, Rolex Milgauss ref. 116400WO and an IWC Portuguese Chronograph. Anyway, if you’ve got a spare five minutes, this is a great video that simply and easily explains the salient facts of quartz technology.
Editor’s note: With weather more conducive to anything other than complete hibernation finally starting to creep back into our lives Down Under, it’s got everyone here in the office talking about what watch you should be wearing when the board shorts, bikinis and budgie smugglers come out. Now, we’ve already covered what we think will be in vogue this coming summer, and its vibrant white watches. But what if you’re not so inclined to wear something that’s so fabulously OTT? What happens if you’re after something that still offers the characteristics of a great summer timepiece, but does so without being quite so garish? Well, we reckon the Rado HyperChrome Ultra Light could be just the watch, thanks to its decidedly unobtrusive colour palette of predominantly black and brown and complementing textile strap. The HyperChrome Ultra Light also well and truly lives up to its name when it comes to tipping the scales, weighing in at an insanely light 56 grams. And a lightweight timepiece that doesn’t feel overly cumbersome on the wrist surely has to be another prerequisite for a great summer watch. For me, the HyperChrome Ultra Light is one of the coolest, cleanest watches in Rado’s…
H. Moser & Cie are coming Down Under next week to show off some of their hottest new timepieces. We can’t wait to see Moser’s very rare watches, especially these three stunners: Pioneer Perpetual Calendar MD Moser has decided to up the horological ante once again with its latest Pioneer, the Pioneer Perpetual Calendar MD. The MD employs the use of dual windows, and it sees the month indicator being saddled up closely to the left of the Pioneer’s date window, which arguably makes for even clearer legibility than its previous Pioneer Perpetual Calendar. Available in both Funky Blue Fumé or Burgundy Fumé dials and featuring the HMC 808 hand-wound calibre movement, this wristwatch is a compelling proposition for anyone looking for the epitome of unique practicality. Venturer Concept Vantablack Widely regarded as the darkest substance know to mankind, Vantablack has to be one of the most in-vogue substances of 2019. And when paired with the dial of Moser’s Venturer Concept, the result is something truly stunning. The new Venturer Concept’s case beautifully contrasts the ultra-black dial, thanks to the use of solid 5N red gold. The unique timepiece also features the Swiss watchmaker’s hand-wound HMC 327 movement, which offers…
It seems like every other week there’s a new Casio being unleashed upon the wristwatch-wearing world. And this week is no different, as the Japanese marque has just released this — the Casio G-Shock GMW-B5000TB. That’s right, there’s now another 5000-series vying for the attention of all you digital devotees out there, and this one’s got a real point of difference. You see, although it may look like it’s using the same type of rubber as a regular G-Shock, it’s actually a fully titanium case, bracelet, bezel, caseback and buttons. And if the new titanium wasn’t enough, Casio has then gone to the trouble of treating the whole watch to a Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) coating, complete with a textured finish. As a result, the new GMW-B5000TB weighs in a whole 57 grams less than its antecedent, the steel GMW-B5000D. The new titanium timepiece also features contrasting gold script and accents, a move that Casio says is a styling tip-of-the-hat to its first-ever G-Shock, the DW-5000C-1B. Other features of the new GMW-B5000TB include a non-reflective sapphire crystal, an STN LCD display optimised for maximum legibility, and smartphone connectivity that enables users to adjust the settings of the watch. Utilising…
Horological heavyweight Richard Mille has just unveiled their latest limited edition masterpiece, the Richard Mille RM 50-04 Kimi Räikkönen, and there’s only one thing we can say … Bwoah! In typical fashion only to be expected of Richard Mille, the RM 50-04 is an incredibly complicated and quite frankly wonderful timepiece, designed for the one and only “Iceman” of the Formula 1 paddock, Mr Kimi-Matias Räikkönen. The RM 50-04 also celebrates the watchmaker’s affiliation with Alfa Romeo’s Formula 1 Racing Team, which Räikkönen has been a part of since signing with the Swiss race team in 2018. As a result, the new RM 50-04 not only shares the same colour scheme as Räikkönen’s C38 Formula 1 car, but the same technological design philosophy and attention to detail. For example, the bezel and caseback of the new timepiece is fashioned from a substance known only as Quartz TPT. It’s produced by interlaying no less than 600 layers of silicon, each 45 microns thick, and then impregnating said layers with a white matrix, before placing it all in something called an autoclave and heating it to a sweltering 120 Celsius. According to Richard Mille, the benefits of utilising this material are profound,…