SalonQP is once again getting ready to open its doors in London later this month (22nd – 24th of November). With a new owner at the helm and a revised format planned, it seems the iconic location – London’s Saatchi Gallery – is the only thing set to stay the same this year. Many familiar […]
It was the kind of unanswerable question only a toddler could ask. We were sitting in a sun-warmed café window-seat early one morning, and the moon was still visible in the blue sky. While I sipped my latte, and my eldest daughter, Indie, smeared as much of her berry smoothie on her upper lip as possible, I’d mused out loud, “Can you believe we went there? All the way to the moon for a walk and to collect some rocks and then home again …” My voice trailed off. Indie’s piped up. “Why haven’t we been back?” [BUY THE MAGAZINE NOW] I didn’t have an immediate response. Eventually, I came up with something: “We did it well enough the first time, I guess.” (Of course, we did go back – there were six manned moon landings between 1969 and 1972. But a five-year-old girl is not worried about facts. And we really only remember our first time.) A couple of weeks later, I think I can expand on that thought. Some achievements are so epic that they don’t necessarily beg to be repeated. Some works of art are so beautiful that it’s clearly pointless to try to improve on them. And…
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Blancpain’s Bathyscaphe is one of those rare, chameleonic watch designs. A watch that, broadly speaking, owes great fidelity to its primogenitor, but a watch that doesn’t look dated. It’s a neutral watch — something that gives the Bathyscaphe broad appeal and great versatility. In steel, it’s a classic, traditional dive watch, but here, in black ceramic, it’s something much more modern in style. And the execution of the ceramic really is gorgeous. Crisp lines, even brushed finishes, really lovely stuff — the material is finished like metal, but with ceramic’s advantages of light weight and scratch resistance. No matter how you slice it, the case of this watch is cool. The dial isn’t half bad either, and I quite like how reserved Blancpain has been, keeping the hour markers quite small, when it must have been tempting to scale them up. The result is, to my eye, a more subtle, versatile watch dial, which doesn’t scream ‘diver!’ at the top of its lungs. This is a watch you could definitely wear daily, with a suit (especially in the smaller case size), or for any Cousteau-esque underwater adventures you might have planned. Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe black ceramic Australian pricing Blancpain Fifty…
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It’s not uncommon for watch brands to buy cases, movements, crystals, straps, etc. to assemble at their base location, and then stamp their name on the dial and call it their own. Not all companies can build from scratch and even major luxury brands use ETA movements and various outsourced components. Back in the 1940’s, a brand known as Chronographe Suisse (Swiss Chronograph) provided inexpensive “generic” chronograph watches and parts for brands to adopt and add their name. Even local jewellers branded these watches as their own. They sold watches with in-house “Chronographe Suisse” branding as well, adding some confusion into the mix. Popular in the European market as (relatively) cheap Swiss watches for tourists, Chronographe Suisse became a significant revenue source for small, often forgettable brands and many of these watches are collectables today. At its peak, over 500 workshops were producing watches from Chronographe Suisse supplies. This successful business model thrived from the 1940’s to the 1970’s, before the quartz revolution wreaked havoc on the industry overall. Let’s take a closer look at this somewhat forgotten chapter of twentieth-century watch history.
In the first installment of our three-part series in partnership with Audemars Piguet, we explore the brand’s history of complicated watchmaking.
In the latest installment of the Collection Inspection series, Jason’s diving MOD-style and James has gone Polar.
Ace Jewelers and Nomos Glashütte have teamed up for the second time to create a limited-edition wristwatch. Their first attempt was a cool, slightly “out of the box” Orion watch inspired by art movement “De Stijl” and featuring a unique dial with asymmetrical indexes. For their second watch together, the Dutch theme is still present (Ace Jewelers is one of the largest retailers in the Netherlands) as inspired by the city of Amsterdam. Meet the original, fresh-looking Nomos Club Campus Amsterdam Limited Edition by Ace Jewelers.
They say legends aren’t born, they’re made. And the immortal story of the archetypal diver’s watch, Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms, is as legendary as they come. Beginning with tales of clandestine underwater missions and Oscar-winning performances. Following a long and ultimately unsuccessful search for a watch that would suit all their aquatic espionage needs, in 1952, Captain Robert “Bob” Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud – two commanding officers from the then recently established French combat diving corps – sat down with a drawing pad and pencil, and set out to design a watch that would not only play an instrumental role in the military unit’s covert undertakings, but could also survive the immense pressures found at the murky depths of their usual field of operations. Essentially, what they were after was a water-resistant watch with a black dial, large numerals and clear indications using triangles, circles and squares, that used an external rotating bezel for measuring elapsed time, and had markings that could be easily read in both light and under the discreet cover of darkness. With a sketch in hand, the pair then approached a small Villeret watch manufacturer by the name of Blancpain, and then-CEO, Jean-Jacques Fiechter, who was…
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Take two parts dial, one part case, one part movement and two dashes of typical Seiko value and you have a recipe for a particularly tasty cocktail; in this case, the Seiko Presage Cocktail Time ‘Fuyugeshiki’ limited edition, specifically the 40.5mm SRPC97J1, and the 33.8mm SRP843J1. We are pleased to offer limited numbers of both models for sale within Australia in our shop, buy them here. Also included in the sale is a copy of NOW – THE WATCH BUYING GUIDE, Time+Tide’s first publication. These limited edition watches are inspired by cocktails created by Hisashi Kishi, the head bartender at Tokyo’s Star Bar, with the case design and hour markers inspired by the shape of a cocktail glass. Mr Kishi created a paired drink, with a cool, pure appearance and, if it tastes anything like the dial looks, it must be delicious. Fuyugeshiki literally translates as ‘winter scene’, and the dial certainly delivers on that promise — it’s rich, crisp and white. Like previous versions of the Cocktail Time, the dial is pressed, but instead of the radial pattern we’ve seen before, the pattern here is very delicate, a repeating, naturalistic vertical pattern that resembles fine brushwork or — if you’re feeling poetic…
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Surf legend Kelly Slater partners with Breitling for a special edition chronograph.