Watch Dandy

British watchmaker Bremont may have only been around since 2002, but in that time they’ve earned respect for watches that are durable and robust to an extreme degree, and British to a tee at all times throughout. Few breakthroughs have helped this reputation quite as much as the significant percentage of watches Bremont produce being set aside for an increasing number of men and women serving in armed forces across the globe. Bremont are also, impressively, official suppliers to the British Ministry of Defence. Their most recent collection includes fit-for-purpose timepieces for several different disciplines, whether that be pilot’s watches, dive watches or field watches. Here are five we’ve tried and tested. BREMONT ARGONAUT A simple three-handed watch with a dual crown system (located at 2 and 4 o’clock) and a super-compressor dive watch style design, the Argonaut’s main feature is its internal rotating bezel, designed for tracking elapsed time. Of the three new HMAF watches, this one is inspired by the Royal Navy. At 42mm and with nothing but the centrally mounted time and a 3 o’clock date to distract, the Argonaut is a highly legible watch. Ref No: HMAF-Argonaut / Case size: 42mm / Case material: Steel /…

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Transparency is almost always a good thing, be it in political donations, corporate bonuses or who your local member of parliament is having lunch with. It is a concept that Chanel has adopted as a motif in their watchmaking department, seen in the Boy.Friend Skeleton, their remarkable Monsieur de Chanel Pocket Watch (an almost US$800,000 skeletonised pocket watch set with 7.12 carats of baguette diamonds and held in an 18k white gold and obsidian lion-themed stand), and now most recently with the Chanel J12 X-Ray. The J12 collection has been making significant strides into the horological landscape of late, winning the 2019 Ladies Prize at the GPHG, and bringing the monochromatic vision of Coco Chanel to life through their full ceramic cases and bracelets. With the Chanel J12 X-Ray, you get the same classic J12 shape except, instead of ceramic, almost the entire watch is made out of sapphire crystal. The bracelet is entirely sapphire apart from the pins that secure the links to one another; the case and dial are almost totally sapphire, and even the movement has been rebuilt to have sapphire bridges. The bezel and the hour markers are both set with baguette diamonds in white gold to…

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David Beckham’s latest project has got off to a dodgy start. For six long years he’s worked tirelessly to establish the first Major League Soccer team in Miami. After endless wrangling over stadium sites and investment, Club Internacional de Fútbol Miami – or Inter Miami – played their first two games this month. Unfortunately, they lost both. In further bad news for the club’s part-owner, on the eve of Miami’s first-ever home game this weekend, the league has just been shut down for a month due to coronavirus. On the plus side, Beckham has already wangled a new watch out of it. The 44-year-old has been spotted with a rare custom  Tudor Pelagos dangling from his heavily tattooed wrist. In modern diving-watch circles, the Pelagos rates highly — it won the prestigious Best Sports Watch category at the 2015 GPHG Awards. Nicely sized at 42mm, it’s got a lightweight build thanks to its titanium case, a ceramic bezel, auto-adjusting clasp, plus a highly respectable 500m of water resistance. What makes Beckham’s Pelagos strikingly different is that there’s an Inter Miami crest stamped at 6 o’clock. When you’re a walking super-brand, it seems, a football scarf just doesn’t cut it. In fact,…

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When you think celebrities and timepieces, most people with an inkling about watch collecting would throw up the same names – Mark Wahlberg, Ellen DeGeneres, Ed Sheeran, John Mayer, Kevin Hart, Drake … you get the picture. What many people might not have realised is that Jonah Hill’s watch collection is really starting to take shape. In fact, so filled with bangers is the man’s assortment of timepieces, you could say it’s straight-up Superbad … OK, that’s a terrible pun, but you get the picture: he’s bought into hypebeast horology in a big way. So, without further ado (or another terrible pun), here are Mr Hill’s best watches. Rolex Daytona Ref.116520 Hill has been seen sporting this pre-ceramic Rolex Daytona Ref.116520 on multiple occasions, both in front of the camera and IRL. He famously wore it during filming of the smash hit Moneyball, and in the above photo he can be seen wearing it while embracing skateboarding doyen and artist Mark “The Gonz” Gonzales. This a tasteful choice by Hill, and a pragmatic one, considering the 116520’s residual value in this day and age. This watch, and the fact that Hill has been seen wearing it so often, also paints a picture…

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As I mentioned in my video review of the Apple Watch Series 5, this isn’t the sort of watch that Time+Tide typically reviews. But since 2017, when the Series 2 was launched, the Apple Watch has made headline after headline as it sold millions of units and increasingly worried Swiss watch executives. This shifted the Apple Watch away from being just another piece of consumer electronics to a well-designed object that deserves the same level of scrutiny as a mechanical watch, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the Apple Watch isn’t going anywhere, and while there are certainly positive impacts that it is having on the watch industry, it would be naive to think Apple isn’t playing hard to increase its share of wrist real estate at the expense of similarly priced mechanical watches. As Brendan noted in his analysis of Swiss watch export figures from 2019, the sales of Swiss watches under CHF 3000 are dropping sharply, while those more expensive than CHF 3000 are growing. This isn’t only caused by the Apple Watch, but there are some estimates the Apple Watch saw more than 30 per cent growth in sales in 2019 with no signs of slowing down…

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