Blancpain’s Villeret collection welcomes the 40mm Grande Date Jour Retrograde on board. Very much in line with the understated, classic tone of the Villeret family, this new Villeret watch features a novel retrograde day of the week indication paired with a big date displayed in two windows. Unveiled at Baselworld 2018, along with a Villeret […]
Many brands struggle to stand out from the crowd and to define what makes them unique. Not with MeisterSinger. This brand makes mechanical watches with one single hand for people who just want to keep track of time, with a certain poetry in the display. This has always been the defining point of the brand. While usually rather classical (even though sometimes colourful), the brand recently started to offer bolder pieces, and that includes a brand new collection of black, instrumental watches introduced at Baselworld 2018. Meet the four watches of the MeisterSinger Black Line – including the Circularis Power Reserve, the Salthora Meta, the Perigraph and the No.03.
Today is an important day for our American readers (and there are many of them…) If you read this watch magazine, you probably have a certain interest in all things watches. Thus, if you want to combine your American pride with your love for watchmaking, Ulysse Nardin might have a solution for you, with this limited edition launched on Independence Day – the 4th of July. “Stars and Stripes” meet flying tourbillon with the new Ulysse Nardin Executive Skeleton Tourbillon “Stars and Stripes” Edition.
Recently, in London, Frederique Constant unveiled the all-new Ladies Automatic collection of timepieces, with its global charity ambassador, Gwyneth Paltrow. The new, softly colored Ladies Automatic watches also have a charitable side. According to Peter and Aletta Stas of Frederique Constant, USD 50 of the sale of each watch will benefit Paltrow’s charity of choice: DonorsChoose.org. This new Frederique Constant Ladies Automatic Collection isn’t only good looking, it also has good intentions.
With this new watch, Laurent Ferrier presents the compilation of its best features: the combination of red gold with a black dial dear to the founder, the regulator display that has been introduced a year ago, the in-house micro-rotor movement and the elegant, stylish Galet Square case. Yet, for the first time, all of them are reunited in a single watch, giving a desirable and well-balanced watch. Meet the Laurent Ferrier Galet Square Regulateur Black.
There’s no doubt that, when talking Omega watches, we all now that the brand has quite a savoir-faire in terms of chronographs. Think Speedmaster, what certainly is one of the most emblematic watches ever created. Well, if you go back a bit earlier in the history (quite a lot earlier in fact), you’ll see that there’s more to discover. In 1913, Omega produced one of the world’s first wrist-chronographs and helped change the way these pieces will be later worn. Today, at the Omega Museum, the brand unveiled an incredible reissue of this antique watch, with equal military roots and, best of all, some historical, refurbished vintage movements inside.
RGM Watch Co., based in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and founded in 1992 by Roland G. Murphy, is quite literally the only true American watch company standing. Unlike other brands that might build cases, dials or straps in America, RGM manufactures their own high-grade, in-house calibres that rival comparable movements from Switzerland. They’re a complete watch manufacturer. My first serious mechanical watch was a Model 107-P Pilot, an entry-level RGM piece (with an ETA 2892-A2) that’s also the oldest in their portfolio, produced since the mid-1990’s. They often use antique, hand-operated machinery to craft dials and to hand-polish components, mixing modern and traditional techniques to produce luxury watches that are often limited editions. Many have advanced complications, such as the Pennsylvania Tourbillon or Caliber 20 (with a 2nd type motor barrel and “Precise Moonphase”), and are painstakingly adorned with elaborate engine-turned (guilloché) dials and movements like the Model 801-EE. One of their most popular watch series was the Model 121-M William Penn line from the years 1999 to 2000, and in RGM style, they have reissued the watches in a very limited series of 10.
It’s not often that a watch brand can celebrate the centenary of a milestone in their history, but Junghans is doing just that with a pair of watches that commemorate a nine-stepped terrace building in Schramberg, Germany. This industrial building by Philipp Jakob Manz, considered to be an architectural masterpiece, was the centrepiece of the Junghans factory for decades. Junghans was the largest clock manufacturer in the world at the start of the 20thcentury and the terrace building was erected out of necessity to increase factory space in the crowded valley of Schramberg. Built directly on a slope and resembling a staircase, the building provided direct daylight into the windows of each ascending floor, with the top floor reserved for the painstaking assembly and regulation of chronometers. Today we have two limited edition Meister Chronoscope Terrassenbau timepieces to pay homage to Junghans’ renowned structure.
If you want to dip your toe into the world of sophisticated complications, it usually comes at a price. A tourbillon, for example, can easily add CHF 20,000 or more to the price of a watch. The Longines Master Collection has been around since 2005 and serves as a contemporary alternative to their revered Heritage Collection (with more traditional designs). The Master Collection has a wide variety of complications, from power reserve displays to calendar chronographs with moonphase and more, but these new models are the first for Longines to have an annual calendar. The Longines Master Collection Annual Calendar not only offers a more sophisticated calendar complication than the norm but does so at an impressively affordable price.
It is no news anymore for most of us. Paris-based watchmaker Bell & Ross is teaming up with French F1 team Renault. This partnership, which started in 2016 (and that we’ve explained here and here), mostly gave birth to squared watches – after all, the shape that made the brand successful. However, not all of us want to sport such a bold watch on the wrist. This is why, in order to celebrate the reopening the French Grand Prix this year, Bell & Ross unveils the Vintage BR V2-94 R.S.18 for Renault F1. And this time, it is a (not so) classic round watch.