Vintage-inspired watches are all the rage these days with military and dive watches usually grabbing the spotlight. Tissot has been around since the early 1850s and knows a thing or two about vintage watches. The brand’s Heritage collection is full of throwbacks, celebrating milestones in both engineering and design. For instance, the Visodate line looks […]
The story in a second: The anOrdain Model 2 is an unbelievable dial at an unbelievable price. From where I’m sitting, 2019 has been a fairly quiet year on the watch front, thanks to a more fragmented release schedule than usual and a general sense of reticence on behalf of many big brands to push the boat out in what is euphemistically called a soft luxury market. Which is why the headline-grabbing hits have been few and far between. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is actually a pretty good state of affairs. The generally conservative slate of releases has been pretty good for the wearer: smart, incremental design upgrades benefit more people than brand new tourbillons (or whatever). It also means that people like me — professional watch reviewers — have to work a bit harder for their stories. I mean, there are only so many words we can write on a minor dial upgrade of an existing model. All this is a particularly long-winded way of saying that the anOrdain Model 2 is a watch I’ve been SUPER excited to get on my wrist since I first caught wind of it. Before I go into why I was…
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Celebrating five decades since its first automatic chronograph was released, Seiko has just unveiled this, the new Seiko Automatic Chronograph SRQ029J 50th Anniversary. First revealed in 1969, the original Seiko Automatic Chronograph featured the Japanese watchmaker’s historic Calibre 6139 movement, which utilised an integrated vertical clutch and column wheel chronograph architecture. 1969 was a competitive and interesting time for watchmakers, as it wasn’t just Seiko that was trying to bring an automatic chronograph to market in the last year of the Swinging Sixties. In fact, not only was an automatic chronograph joint venture between Heuer and Breitling on the precipice of release, but Zenith’s famed El Primero movement was also on the verge of being brought to market. Exciting times indeed for the chronograph. The 6139-equipped timepieces were presented in a number of different colour schemes, and all featured a day-date indicator and a single 30-minute sub-dial located at the 6 o’clock position on the sporty dial. What followed the 6139 was arguably one of Seiko’s most notable chronographs of all time, the Seiko 6138 “Panda”. In fact, the Calibre 6138 spawned a great many cult classics, including the “Kakume”, “Jumbo”, “Calculator” and “Bullhead”. The Panda, like all 6138-powered timepieces, featured two sub-dials: one displaying…
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Some of the coolest and cultiest of vintage Seiko watches are their calibre 5719 monopusher chronographs, released to coincide with the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 (an event for which Seiko were the official timekeepers btw). These watches didn’t look much like a chronograph, with only a single seconds hand and a bidirectional bezel to track elapsed time. They were also (like all chronographs before 1969), manually wound affairs. And while they might have lacked the sort of bells and whistles we expect from a sporty chronograph today, you can’t deny that these angular pieces, with reserved ’60s good looks oozed style. Well, that was 55 years ago and Seiko has decided that the time is right for a reissue. Which brings us to the SRQ031J, which preserves the old-school charm of the original but adds in some of that modern functionality we expect in 2019. The Seiko Anniversary Chronograph 55th Anniversary SRQ031J (to give it its full name) is a large, fully specced automatic, limited to 1000 pieces. And for all that it’s larger than the OG version, it does a very good job of evoking its spirit. The silver dial is shimmery in the light under the sapphire crystal,…
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In late August, extreme explorer Victor Vescovo achieved the culmination of his Five Deeps project becoming the first human to dive to the bottom of the deepest point of all five of the world’s oceans. Not just once, but multiple times at each site. Joining him for each dive were three Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean […]
The travel watch is one of the classic tropes in the world of watch design — and as with all recurring themes, the travel watch is a broad spectrum, ranging from rough and ready all the way up to the private jets and mega-yachts version of travelling in style. The Grand Seiko SBGE201 treads a middle ground. It’s solid steel, but it also possesses enough innate pizzaz to hold its own in more formal situations. This tricky balancing act comes down to the materials Grand Seiko has used, and how they’ve been treated: the steel is hard-wearing and robust, but it’s been treated with Grand Seiko’s typical level of obsession and care, to transform the otherwise ubiquitous case-material into something far more sculptural. And, of course, that sapphire inset bezel adds more than its fair share of flash. So, if you’re the sort of traveller who likes to stand out while fitting in, the classic, sporty shape and ever-impressive Spring Drive tech of the Grand Seiko SBGE201 might be something you want to take a closer look at. Grand Seiko SBGE201 price Grand Seiko SBGE201, $8400 AUD Made in partnership with Grand Seiko. However, the opinions expressed in this article are…
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Laco is a brand that sometimes flies under the radar (notably in America), overshadowed by German counterparts like Sinn, Junghans and MeisterSinger. It should definitely not be overlooked as it offers compelling, military-inspired watches at attainable prices. The brand is also older than two of the three mentioned above and is perhaps best known as […]
Feeling bold today? Good. Now meet a pilot’s watch with camouflaged hands, a day-date indication, a ceramic case and a normal-sized crown. Except for the triangle at 12 o’clock (and yes… a few other things to be honest), there’s not much that makes this an actual Pilot’s watch. But is it any good? We took […]
The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak SelfWinding Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin, which started its life as a prototype watch named RD#2, is one of these watches that look so right. It is at once a superb design object and a highly engineered piece of horological ingenuity. Of course, it is the thinnest perpetual calendar wristwatch. But interestingly, its development was not initiated to break any record. The idea was simply to design a perpetual calendar Royal Oak that could easily slip under any cuff…
There are moments in life that call for an elegant, time-only watch. Situations in which a strapping tool watch with protruding pushers and a glowing dial won’t look quite right. If you are in the market for a handsome, straightforward time-only watch we have two very interesting candidates as different in looks as their cultural […]