Hands-on – A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon with Pink Gold (Salmon) Dial
Montblanc, Audemars, Patek and more… Salmon/pink dials are THE trend for the 2018/2019 collection. Even though not entirely novel, we’ve never encountered so many watches with pink-coloured dials as we have this year. Don’t get us wrong, we actually love salmon dials here, at MONOCHROME (see Frank’s love letter here). There are, however, different ways to execute a salmon dial and when it decided to do its first real pink-coloured timepiece, A. Lange & Söhne took the high-end road… really high-end, with the new Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon and its solid pink gold dial.
The talk of the Jaeger-LeCoultre booth at SIHH was the incredible (and incredibly well-sized) Master Grande Tradition Gyrotourbillon Westminster Perpétuel, but that rare bird was in hot demand, so we didn’t manage any quality one-on-one time with it. But that’s OK really, as there were numerous other exquisitely finished offerings on hand, from the Reverso and Master families. Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Moon Enamel This watch and the two other Master Thins take several design cues from the grand daddy Gyrotourbillon, but in a package that’s in the realm of mortals. The dials are a rich and complex blue guilloché, and the movements in these three pieces have been revamped and improved. Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Perpetual Enamel Building on the same formula as above, this watch offers a significantly more complex perpetual calendar. Bonus points for a design that manages to balance complexity and beauty. Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Tourbillon Enamel JLC’s expertise with tourbillon is legendary, something that’s apparent to anyone gazing at that well at six. Gorgeous. Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Small Seconds Changing gears to the iconic Reverso, JLC offered a few snappy dial and case variations this year, including this rich and full-bodied Tribute Small Seconds…
One of my highlights of SIHH every year is IWC – and not just because their booth is exceptional; this year it was dominated by an actual gleaming silver Spitfire. No, I like seeing IWC because the watches rarely disappoint, and this year was absolutely no exception. The Pilot’s collection is one of the brand’s iconic staples, and hugely popular in Australia (and, for that matter, around the world). And at SIHH it got some major new additions, mainly in the Spitfire and Top Gun sub families. Spitfire is the more retro of the two, and covered off the classics — a pitch-perfect 39mm automatic, a chronograph, a simpler Timezoner, a Big Pilot-cased perpetual and even a welcome return of the UTC. Now, while it’s easy to get caught up in the bronze cases and green dials on offer, for me the really big news is that the whole Spitfire family is now powered by in-house movements. Over in the Top Gun line, novel materials were the name of the game — with Ceratanium making an appearance on the Doppelchrono, and a gorgeous khaki ‘Mojave’ limited edition that I just can’t get out of my head. So, time to cue…
When Montblanc gave us a privileged preview of its new Heritage collection in Miami back in October, our gut told us that they had a winner in the salmon-dialled Heritage Pulsograph. Forward three months to SIHH: 36 exhibiting brands and I-don’t-know-how-many-hundreds of new watches later, our opinion is, if anything, stronger than ever. With the Heritage Pulsograph’s immaculately judged balance of good looks, technical content, quality of execution and price, Montblanc has hit the nail on the head. First, let’s talk aesthetics: vintage-inspired watches have been a thing for some years now – and thanks to its head of watches, Davide Cerrato, Montblanc is a shining example of how to do it right. (Cerrato has previous form, as you may know, having harnessed Tudor’s archives to transform it from also-ran to super-cool brand half a decade ago.) At Montblanc, he has the rich archives of Minerva to draw on – and the Heritage Pulsograph is very similar to a 1940s Minerva monopusher chrono. But it’s no slavish copy. We were able to line up both watches together and, on the new model, the lines of the case and lugs are cleaner, the surfaces flatter, giving the whole watch a more contemporary…
If the over $35,000 price point is not the most crowded at SIHH, it is equal to the 20-35k bracket before it. There are a lot of watches to choose from. From Baume & Mercier, with a well-priced perpetual calendar that dropped just over 35kAUD, to Richard Mille’s sweet Bonbon confection, practically all brands were in the arena for this podium call – though only three made it. One other small note about this bracket: this year we isolated the high complications to their own category, which means that all those people listing VC and JLC in their lists on YouTube, vying to win a handmade sterling silver Time+Tide lapel pin, are technically correct as they’re over 35k, but they might just make an appearance in their own big show, coming soon. Sorry, we tweaked the rules just a little there! To watch Felix and I talk through my selections, hit the video. If you’re impatient, see below. Vacheron Constantin’s Overseas Tourbillon Really tough call here, with a strong showing from Vacheron this year (that Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin has kept me up at nights) but in the end I “ate with my eyes” and preserved the shock factor of seeing…