Until fairly recently Formex used to be a bricks and mortar watchmaker. This was before Raphael Granito took over the company a couple of years ago. In the midst of an increasing competition and changing times for the watch industry, Granito decided to shift the business model from wholesale distribution to direct-to customer.
The Chronofighter Vintage Collection made its debut in 2016. With this tasteful facelift, the brand’s signature trigger chronograph has been refined, and the case scaled down to 44mm, giving it a relatively subdued look (we said relatively… It is still a very bold watch). It features a redesigned start stop trigger, with a knurled onion crown and a mushroom shaped reset pusher. Graham have now added another model to this collection, further enhancing its vintage ‘flair’ with an attractive doctor’s watch, released in two steel limited editions of 250 pieces each, the Graham Chronofighter Vintage Pulsometer Ltd.
For the past few years, Longines has been quite active in the field of vintage reissues and vintage-inspired watches. In fact, there’s an entire collection named “Heritage”, full of watches that pay tribute to the rich past of the 185 years old brand. Some were just fine, some were highly desirable and some were rather disappointing (those date windows…) However, today, it seems that with the new Longines Avigation BigEye, we might have a solid package: a military-inspired pilot chronograph, with vintage flair, no-date display, balanced proportions, nice automatic movement and a very decent price…
We’d like to introduce you to a new watch collection. We’ll go hands-on with one of their watches in a few days but as they have launched their campaign on Kickstarter (it is scheduled to deliver in January) we wanted to have a first look at what these cool motorcycle-inspired timepieces named JSk Series bring to the table.
An elegant sports-watch? A robust dress watch? A casual watch? Call it the way you want, the Rolex Datejust simply is the definition of the all-rounder, a sort of SUV of the watches that can do everything, that can go everywhere and that can be worn with everything. The Rolex Datejust 41, first introduced at Baselworld 2016 in two-tone, now comes in steel versions, which means that it is now more affordable and even more versatile. This is why we had to go hands-on with the new iterations of this icon (ref. 126300 and ref. 126334), that we’ll name an SUW, a sports utility watch.
There’s something quite special about Seiko and its community of collectors. Indeed, some are proper fanatics and every new limited edition, especially if branded Prospex (the professional line of watches at Seiko), can create a blast among these aficionados. Very recently, Seiko introduced another limited edition, reserved to the Thai market (don’t worry, you can find it elsewhere…) based on the well-known Titanium Diver’s 200m “Shogun” SBDC029J. New gradient dial, different hands and a splash of colours, and here is the Seiko Prospex Shogun Zimbe SPB057J.
Figure that: the Swiss and Italian Alps, in the middle of August, 7 mountain passes (including the mighty Passo Dello Stelvio), over 70 classic Italian cars, and a roadbook detailing some 250km of mountain roads… This was the program of “Passione Engadina”, a highly coveted classic cars rally, which is, since this year, sponsored by Jaeger-LeCoultre. I …
Before you burn me on the stakes, yes, I am well aware this is a quartz watch and we very rarely cover these. This time I am being chauvinistic and taking a break from our self-implied guidelines to bring you a watch for the simple reason it is linked to a young Dutch hero to many of my fellow countrymen, and a rising Formula 1 star; Max Verstappen. Launched in Amsterdam just days ago, here is our hands-on report of the new Tag Heuer Formula 1 No.33 Max Verstappen Limited Edition.
Before you burn me on the stakes, yes, I am well aware this is a quartz watch and we very rarely cover these. This time I am being chauvinistic and taking a break from our self-implied guidelines to bring you a watch for the simple reason it is linked to a young Dutch hero to many of my fellow countrymen, and a rising Formula 1 star; Max Verstappen. Launched in Amsterdam just days ago, here is our hands-on report of the new Tag Heuer Formula 1 No.33 Max Verstappen Limited Edition.
Few brands can argue to have watches that are so iconic that they are actually known after monikers. Rolex and Omega are amongst them – think “Paul Newman”, “Bart Simpson” or “Deep Blue” – but Seiko is also on par in this “nickname game”. Many of their watches have been granted with funky sobriquets, as for instance the “Turtle” or the “62Mas”. Another one, more modern, is the “Samurai”, known to be a sporty and high quality-to-value ratio. After a discreet comeback with the (sold-out) Lagoon Limited Edition, aficionados will be pleased to see that the Seiko Prospex Samurai is back in the 2017 collection, and now in non-limited editions.