SIHH 2017 – Baume & Mercier Debuts In Sports Watches With The Satisfying Clifton Club

The SIHH 2017 has seen the debuts of an entirely new collection for Baume & Mercier, the Clifton Club, exploring new territories for the brand: sports watches. Indeed, this universe is at first rather far away from what the brand used to do for the last decade. Still, this Clifton Club is an interesting novelty. No marketing artifices about heritage, vintage-inspiration or an obscure past collection. This watch is just what it looks like; a nicely executed, well-designed, well-positioned (price and style) watch that makes us think it might be a relevant reaction to the actual market. Overview.

8 years ago

REVIEW – Squale Squalematic 60 Atmos – A Dive Watch Full of Vintage Charisma

The vintage-inspired trend that overshadows the watch market these past few years is still evolving, with most companies more or less digging in their archives, trying to find vintage designs, to bring them back in life. Although this may show the difficult position of the Swiss watch industry as a whole, it can be argued that it has some benefits. Perhaps the most important one is that the market is full of great new watches. One of these is arguably the new Squale Squalematic 60 Atmos, a vintage-inspired dive watch that comes from a company with great pedigree. So we placed it under the Monochrome microscope and here are our thoughts.

8 years ago

Panerai PAM00684 – The Small & Gold Luminor Submersible that Rocks

Panerai watches are great. They look super-cool, they have that unique aura of a robust and vintage dive watch mixed with that Italian je-ne-sais-quoi. They are icons of watchmaking. Still, there might be one issue with these watches. Most are sized for lumberjacks’ wrists. If the 45mm or 47mm diameters participate to the look (and they are actually easier to wear than what you can expect), a smaller size could be welcome. That’s what happened with the Panerai Luminor Due, the smaller, slimmer and dressier versions of the icon. But what if you want the sporty look? Well, for the SIHH 2017, the answer came in the name of the Panerai Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Automatic Oro Rosso 42mm PAM00684, the small & gold Luminor Submersible that rocks.

8 years ago

SIHH 2017 – The Piaget Polo S Black ADLC / Rubber (The new Limited Editions That Make A World Of Difference)

Launched with great fanfare in the middle of last year – see our introducing article – the Piaget Polo S was both a breath of fresh air for Piaget and, at the same time (and unfortunately) the most controversial watch of the year 2016. This is the sad part of the story. This watch is great… alone. But it lives in a market full of competitors. It seems that Piaget heard the complaints and for the SIHH 2017, some new limited editions have been showed, the Piaget Polo S Black ADLC / Rubber 3-hand and chronograph – a world of difference… And that’s were the deal becomes pretty interesting.

8 years ago

Value Proposition – Review Of The Hemel Track, A Cool Military-Inspired Field Watch

You never know what to expect when pledging money towards a Kickstarter campaign. This is especially true when investing into a new watch brand, as there are so many different factors that come into play when building a new timepiece from scratch. All of us here at Monochrome hope that we can shed some light on some of the more prominent up and coming watch brands being proposed on Kickstarter, Hemel Watches being one of them – and here is their latest offer, the Hemel Track, a cool military-inspired field automatic watch.

8 years ago

SIHH 2017 – Ulysse Nardin Marine Annual Calendar Chronometer

Ulysse Nardin, a new-comer for the SIHH, is well known for its Marine roots, as the manufacture has been active in the field of Marine Chronometers (to be placed on boat decks) since its inception in 1846. You won’t be surprised though to see that one of the main highlights of the 2017 collection is strongly linked to this rich past. Still, Marine is not the only field where Ulysse Nardin is active. Innovation is another one. Based on the highly simplified annual calendar introduced last year on the Marine Chronograph, this year the brand comes with a more traditional version, the Ulysse Nardin Marine Annual Calendar Chronometer – and that’s not the only thing that pleases us here…

8 years ago

SIHH 2017 – Hands-On With The New Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph UTC

Montblanc has more or less reinvented itself over the last few years, with innovative complications, well designed watches, new high-tech materials and development of the Minerva manufactured movements alongside the goal of “accessible luxury”. All offered at a relative competitive price, even if we are talking about the incredible Montblanc 1858 Chronograph Tachymeter. New for this year will be no less than 5 new TimeWalker models including this Montblanc TimeWalker Chronograph UTC, the traveller’s sport chronograph of the collection.

8 years ago

SIHH 2017 – Ulysse Nardin Regatta (Or What Could Well Be The Cleverest Regatta Watch So Far)

Live from SIHH 2017, where Ulysse Nardin is exposing for the first time, we’ve just been introduced to what could basically be one of the (if not the) cleverest Regatta watches ever. While most of the regatta watches are basically reversed chronographs (which make a count-down instead of timing an event), this watch simply does both, in the most practical possible way. How? By having a bidirectional second hand that starts counterclockwise during the count-down and once it hits zero, changes direction automatically to become a chronograph. It is impressively ingenious and here is how the Ulysse Nardin Regatta works (and take a look at the following video, it will makes things clear).

8 years ago

SIHH 2017 – Audemars Piguet Introduces the Refreshed Royal Oak Chronograph

The best way to ruin an icon watch is certainly to deeply redesigned it. It seems that Audemars Piguet has this statement massively printed everywhere in the design department. Don’t change the Royal Oak, as you’ll certainly end with a result that is not as good at what you already have. Still, the market is a sucker for novelties and some fresh air is needed, from time to time. With this in mind, Audemars Piguet Introduces the Refreshed Royal Oak Chronograph at the SIHH 2017. So no big move, just some tiny little evolutions to make it rather appealing in the end, including a two-tone dial design.

8 years ago

SIHH 2017 – MB&F HM7 Aquapod – The Machine Turned Aquatic Sports Watch

Figure out this situation. Beginning of last week, I was working in front of my computer, writing about upcoming SIHH 2017 watches, headphones glued to my ears, listening to a Quartet for Strings by Gustav Mahler – so-to-say, a quiet situation. Then arrived an email from MB&F, entitled “Horological Machine N°7“. This was already a drastic change of music. I switched to rock and roll. And then, I had to change to alternative-punk-rock when I looked at what basically was a huge “jellyfish-like-aquatic-sports-watch” with MB&F printed on the dial. Yes, you read perfectly, what you look at is the brand’s first attempt of a sports watch. But hey, you’re at Max Bûsser & Friends, so of course we had to expect something hyper-creative again. And that’s exactly what this new MB&F HM7 Aquapod is.

8 years ago