Hearts of darkness – the Tudor Heritage Black Bay Dark
Editor’s note: With the announcement of Tudor’s ceramic Black Bay for Only Watch 2019, we found our minds turned, inexplicably, to the darker things in life. And while the chances of owning that dark phantom are slender, the Tudor Heritage Black Bay Dark is a much more achievable goal … The story in a second: It’s time you met the dark horse of the Black Bay family. After four years of tantalising, tactical releases culminating in the near-perfect surprise announcement of the Black Bay Black last year, we weren’t expecting a new Black Bay in 2016. Well, we were wrong. Tudor gave us not one, but three completely new takes on its modern classic (and updated all the existing models to boot). So now, in addition to the colourful trio of red, blue and black, we’ve got the mighty bronze, the petite 36 and today’s subject, the midnight-hued Black Bay Dark. The case The first thing you notice about the Dark is how apt the name is. It’s a starkly monochromatic watch, the black and white colour scheme only relieved with the occasional flash of red. Of course the dial and bezel are big parts of this picture, but it’s…
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When Bremont burst onto the scene more than 10 years ago they were disruptive outsiders in a staid and often slow-moving industry. Since that time, the brand has gone from strength to strength — something that’s reflected in the solid, no-nonsense watches they make. And the Bremont 2019 collection is no exception, as we found out from co-founder Nick English … Bremont S300 White “It stemmed from the Supermarine … and the 300 is the 40mm version of that. We’ve come up with a white dial with a blue ceramic polished bezel, which is very, very lovely.” Bremont MBIII 10th Anniversary “A white-dial GMT that has an amazing story attached. [Martin-Baker] make 75 per cent of the Western world’s fighter ejection seats … for us it was amazing because it allowed us to put these watches through some incredible environmental testing.” Bremont HMAF Broadsword “The British Ministry of Defence approached us and said, ‘Would you like to work with us?’ … the first one is called the Broadsword, and it’s a tribute to the Dirty Dozen watches.” Bremont HMAF Arrow “The Arrow is a monopusher chronograph; it’s 42mm. I think it’s got a simple but lovely face.” Bremont HMAF Argonaut…
Thanks to their central function in the time-telling process, watch dials often get a significant amount of coverage in the horological media. But this often ignores the thing that keeps the dial on your wrist in the first place — the bracelet or strap. Considering the most customisable part of a watch is the bracelet — and what it looks like has significant impact on how the watch actually looks on the wrist — we wanted to look into the most interesting watch bracelets of 2018. G-SHOCK GMWB5000TFG-9 35TH ANNIVERSARY GOLD ALL METAL MASTERPIECE The one that started it all 35 years ago has been reborn, with everything from its case and caseback, to its bracelet, made of stainless steel for the first time. G-Shock are celebrating with this limited edition version that’s coated in an all gold-coloured ion plating. Bluetooth connectivity allows the user to automatically set the local time or adjust world times and alarms from their phone. Ref No. GMWB5000TFG-9, Case size 49.3mm, Case material Steel, Movement Tough solar, Price $1049 MIDO COMMANDER SHADE SPECIAL EDITION To celebrate their centenary, Mido have released a number of watches that pay tribute to their past. One of which is the Commander,…
If you know the heritage dive brand Doxa, you know they’re famous for three things: Dirk Pitt, distinctive cases, and orange dials that are bright enough to light up your life (and the lives of anyone within a 10-foot radius of you). Dirk Pitt is a fictional adventuring Doxa wearer, created in the mind of Clive Cussler, so we’re not going to cover him too much here. The case and the dial, however, are very much in evidence on the Doxa Sub 1200T Professional. So, if those sound like two things you’re into, read on. It’s important to note that while Doxa has been around for a good long while (the name was registered in 1910), these days the brand is really about their dive watches, which came to the fore in the 1960s. Throughout their history, Doxa had kept their dive watches remarkably true to that 1960s vision — with a legible-yet-stylised dial design (often in that popping orange), broad-flanked cushion-shaped case and an aggressively milled bezel. Not only does this well serve the adage, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’, it’s also a good thing if you happen to have a cult dive design on your hands,…
The “Dirty Dozen” are watches produced by the 12 British Ministry of Defence contractors during World War II who were tasked with strapping watches to the wrists of allied forces. While some of the brands are bigger and better than ever before, a few have slid into relative obscurity or the books of insolvency firms. I wanted to take a look at which of the Dirty Dozen survive today … Which of the Dirty Dozen survive today? During the Second World War, the MoD took the opinion that civilian watches weren’t up to the task of providing accurate timekeeping to their soldiers, and decided they needed more robust watches to distribute. Manufacturing industries around the globe were feeling the strain of the war-time effort, so the MoD couldn’t award the contract to a single brand, and instead offered it to 12 brands. Thankfully, most of them were conveniently based in the neutral territory of Switzerland. It’s clear that brands such as IWC, Omega, Longines, Jaeger-LeCoultre (and more recently Vertex) are all alive and kicking, but what of the other magnificent seven: Buren, Lémania, Eterna, Timor, Cyma, Record and Grana? Buren It is estimated that around 11,000 watches were produced by…
Fun fact: Last year the Apple Watch shipped 22.5 million units. In the same period, the Swiss watch industry exported 23.7 million watches. Scary stuff if you’re a Swiss watch brand. Especially scary if your business is rooted in quartz watches — the market sector that’s being most aggressively eroded by the Apple onslaught. This is hardly news though — the Apple Watch has been around for five years, and the Swiss have been busy coming up with their own alternatives, like the TAG Heuer Connected and the Montblanc Summit. For an excellent state of the union style overview of where the Swiss-versus-smart conflict is up to these days, you can’t go past this snazzy piece in The New York Times by the excellent Robin Swithinbank. Read it here.