Video – Fred Dingemans of d.m.h on Making his Own Hand-Made Watches
More than ten years ago Fred Dingemans started making watches, in the shed in his garden, using a self-restored lathe that has an interesting history. Since Fred limits his production to a maximum of twenty-four watches a year, the waiting list for one of his watches exceeds twelve months and I’d be fair to state that his watches are quite rare. Every watch is first designed with the client and subsequently build entirely in Fred’s atelier; a process that he shares with the client. Many years after my first visit to Fred Dingemans, we went back with the video crew, to film how Fred makes his watches.
Rado are well known for their collaborations with important designers from around the world. Famous names who have designed watches for Rado include English product designer Jasper Morrison, Taiwanese graphic designer Leslie Chan, and more recently the renowned Welsh furniture designer Bethan Gray. The Rado True Thinline Studs Limited Edition is a meeting of Rado’s expertise in high-tech ceramic as a case material, and Bethan’s interest in traditional craft, and how she can tell that story through design. I was fortunate enough to sit down with Bethan to discuss the drivers of her design process and what it was like designing a watch with Rado. If you haven’t come across Bethan’s work before, it is informed by her interests as a passionate traveller and storyteller and her fascination with traditional craft techniques from around the world. She was born in Wales to a Welsh mother and a Scottish father, but her ancestors hail from much further afield, descending from a nomadic Rajasthani clan that migrated across the Middle East. This desire to explore the world has taken Bethan everywhere from China to Oman, two locations that heavily influenced the final design of her project with Rado. One of her favourite techniques…
Timex have kicked off their 2020 novelty releases with an exciting – for those with no signs of Batman fatigue – but fairly unadventurous move. A Batman to wash down their wildly popular Pepsi model. But this time automatic for the people. And this time potentially attainable at the drop, rather than months later. Put your name down here to register your interest. The thought that Timex was ever a pejorative term, or shorthand for a poor watch – and it certainly was in days of yore in Australia – is now amusing. In 2020 the brand is red hot. Todd Snyder’s Marlin. The aforementioned Pepsi. And now this. Called the Timex M79 Automatic, the three-hander timepiece is a continuation of the American watchmaker’s cult release of 2019, the Q Timex 1979 Reissue Pepsi. And while the new M79 retains the same case design, there are a fair few changes to this watch compared to last year’s iteration, some obvious, others not so much. For a start, and perhaps most notably, the iconic red and blue Pepsi bezel is gone, and in its a familiar black and blue bezel has found its way onto the stainless steel case. Timex is…
This week’s office dissension is a contentious one. In fact, it’s an argument so fierce that it threatens to tear the very fabric of Time+Tide’s own dynamic duo, Nicholas Kenyon and James Robinson. The topic of debate — Double Wristing with a mechanical and an Apple Watch: crime or sublime? Let the sparks fly! Nick Kenyon – The For Argument To sum up the sentiments of the majority of Swiss watch executives who have weighed in on the Apple Watch and its impact on the luxury watch business, they typically argue it is not a watch, it is a wrist-worn notification device. As a result, they do not consider it being in direct competition with them, and as Jean-Claude Biver often expresses, it might actually help the watch industry as it trains the youth of today to wear something on their wrist. If Swiss watch executives don’t consider it threatening, nor should you. Anyone can very easily express horological nous on one wrist, while receiving information on their other, all thanks to the human body being blessed with two of them. Wearing an Apple Watch on one wrist doesn’t prevent anyone from wearing a Moser Swiss Alp Concept Black and enjoying…
Editor’s note: At a quick glance, the world of high-end dress watches appears relatively same-same, with the important qualities of each piece only coming to light under much closer inspection. Most dress watches will be time-only, offer a simple dial, and arrive on a leather strap, but as you look closer, you will notice the shape of the hands, the application of hour markers and dial text and the dial material before you even inspect the movement. The Breguet Classique 5177 offers exactly this visual feast of minutiae, with its glossy Grand Feu enamel dial, Breguet-style hands and an intricacy in the hour markers rarely seen. Let’s take a closer look. If there was the platonic ideal of a dress watch, I’m willing to bet that it would look a lot like Breguet’s Classique: simple, elegant, restrained. But for all that, it’s a watch full of subtle nuance and fine details — details that separate it from the rest of the pack. The white gold case, fluted around the middle, is perfectly circular, something accentuated by that rounded, polished bezel, and the abrupt angularity of the welded, rounded lugs. Inside this 38mm case lies the Cal. 777Q, an automatic equipped…
“How waterproof is my watch?” is a very common question that we get asked here at Time+Tide. And the short answer is … it’s not. There isn’t a watch on earth that can withstand the absolute pressure of mother nature and her deepest of ocean trenches. No, watches are, regardless of marketing bollocks, water resistant, to varying degrees. And, rather importantly, the water resistant rating that’s printed or engraved in metres or feet on the dial or case back of a watch, isn’t literal — not by a long shot. So, with that in mind, we thought we’d share with you this simple rule book of sorts, to ensure that your watch doesn’t turn into a receptacle for storing H2O: 30 Metres (3ATM) A very common rating among dress watches, if your timepiece says 30 metres or 3ATM (ATM meaning atmospheres) then IT DOES NOT mean it’s water resistant to 30 metres below sea level. In reality, it means that your watch can withstand splashes of water from washing your hands or getting caught in the rain … and that’s about it. It is also imperative that you don’t take a watch with this little water resistance into the shower with you,…