Watch Dandy

The guy in question is none other than Mark Cho, who’s kind of a big deal in the world of menswear. One of the co-founders of The Armoury and co-owner of Drake’s. He’s also a watch fanatic. He spent one of his first paychecks on an Omega Chronostop, and admits that after falling down the rabbit hole, he has bought close to 60 watches over the last 15 years. Mark was curious about what the perfect watch size was, as well as how this stacked up against the average wrist, so he put together a survey to find some answers. Given the business he’s in, those who follow him on Instagram (where the survey was published) are likely to be more sartorially inclined, possibly skewing the respondents towards smaller dress pieces. Altogether, the survey solicited almost one thousand responses (934 to be specific), and while that obviously isn’t the entire watch market, it’s still a significant enough pool to draw some conclusions from. And here are our top three takeaways.   Men think they have smaller wrists than they actually do. Through conversations with clients, Mark noticed a comment that kept coming up in discussions around watch size. Men very regularly…

The post This guy did a survey and found that 38mm is the perfect watch size – here are our other takeaways appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

The watch industry is nothing if not traditional — and this habitualness extends into the realm of brand partnerships. Formula 1, tennis, car brands, yachting, the Olympics and other top-tier aspirational sporting and cultural events. These are the happy hunting grounds for Swiss marketing executives hoping to leverage a new audience for their finely wrought, ticking products.  Cricket, though. That’s not an avenue traditionally known for its high-profile timekeeping tie-ins. Which is why Hublot, who have been official partners of the ICC Cricket World Cup since 2015, might, just quietly, have a hit on its hands. And the reason is simple. For all that large parts of the world might view cricket as something of a niche colonial sport, its appeal is far from narrow – it’s the second most popular sport in the world, pipped at the post only by football (or soccer, depending on where you are). One-and-a-half billion people are reported to have tuned into the 2015 Cricket World Cup, compared to, say, 98 million for the last Super Bowl. The fact that it’s a less competitive endorsement environment must certainly have its appeal.  Hublot’s cricket pitch has certainly seen significant traction in Australia — which makes…

The post Why Hublot’s pitch at cricket is a smart play appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

In the history of the 20th century, few years are as loaded with cultural weight as the year 1969. It’s defined in our collective memory as the year of Woodstock and the Moon Landing, but it’s also a year of great significance for watches. Chris Hall has done the heavy lifting here for QP Magazine, in this excellent long read that sums up just why 1969 mattered, watch-wise. Of course there’s the complex and multi-pronged development of the automatic chronograph — long regarded as one of watchmaking’s holy grails. And then there’s the aforementioned moon landing, in which Omega’s famous Speedmaster had a small, but significant role. And then, over in Japan there’s the dawn of a new age of timekeeping — the quartz era. And these are all important achievements to look back on; it doesn’t hurt that all these events happened 50 years ago — and no one loves a commemorative limited edition more than a watch brand. Like we said, 1969 was a busy year for watches. Read the full story (with bonus Concorde and internet!) over at QP.

The post RECOMMENDED READING: 1969 – the year that changed watchmaking forever appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

Editor’s note: Our resident Canadian correspondent Justin is a man of some fairly intense and deeply held passions — at least when it comes to watches. His proclivities for bold straps and quirky indies are immediately apparent if you take even a quick glance at his Instagram. His love for the already iconic (and already discontinued) Rolex 116710 BLNR Batman is a little less top-line, but it’s there — all you need to do is scratch the surface. And that’s just what Justin did last year when he had a prolonged date with the watch … You all know the feeling. You spend months or even years dreaming about them, they become the background screen on your phone, tablet and laptop. You sit at your desk at work, and lay awake in bed at night skimming the internet for every possible trace of them. You’re infatuated, obsessed even, with even the remote possibility that they may one day become a part of your life. You may have never even felt their soft touch brush against your skin, but inherently you know … One day, someday, they will be yours. That’s right, the watch crush is real. We’ve all had them, and…

The post Spending some quality time with the Rolex 116710 BLNR Batman appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.