This watch, designed by Italo Fontana and built by his company U-Boat, was first introduced in 2011 and is now available in a new version, a 300-piece limited edition in titanium – hence the name U-Boat Classico 47 U-1001 TIT (I guess that signor Fontana has a less than 100% grasp of English slang). As…
Tutima Glashütte is a brand that has no hurry about presenting new watches. The brand completed their relocation to Glashütte in 2011, and two years later, they presented four lines, Saxon One, Grand Flieger, M2 and Patria. From then on, they have been concerned principally with consolidating their position on the market. The new Saxon…
Avvent’Ora by Vincent Calabrese and his company NHC (Nouvelle Horlogerie Calabrese) is a watch with a political mission. The watch has conventional hour and minute hands, and the dial has a trapezoidal window positioned between two hour markers. Every hour, this part of the dial rotates through 30°, and a trapezoidal aperture opens between adjacent…
Sky-Dweller is an unusual watch, now available in Rolesor, the name that Rolex give to the use of gold and steel together in the same watch. In this piece, the bezel, crown, and centre bracelet links are made in yellow gold. Other parts are in 904L steel. In another version, the combination is between white…
The Sea-Dweller by Rolex is a classic diving watch, but the question is, why buy the Sea-Dweller that costs more than its main competitor, the Rolex Submariner? The answer is that the Sea-Dweller looks larger and tougher, with the dramatic serrations on the rotating bezel, and the technical feel of the case with its helium…
Fashion brand Fendi is more familiar for its furs and leather accessories than its watches. Selleria (which means saddlery) is a name that dates back to the 1930s when it was introduced for bags. The brand’s Selleria watches are more recent, and Fendi have given their timepieces some features that set them apart from the…
Alpina has a long tradition of pilot’s watches, and supplied some continental air forces with timepieces in the first half of the 20th century. The Startimer Pilot Collection, launched in 2011, has become the brand’s best seller. In 2017 the new Startimer Pilot Automatic is a classic pilot’s watch, with an automatic movement, with a…
MotoGP is an important part of Tissot’s sponsorship activities, and every year the brand celebrates this partnership with a new watch. The Tissot T-Race MotoGP Automatic Limited Edition 2017 is dedicated to Spanish rider Jorge Lorenzo, currently riding for Ducati. It is large (45 mm across, 16 mm thick), bold in its black and rose…
Tissot says “it’s time to make technological precision accessible.” While the Tissot Ballade is by no means the cheapest mechanical watch in the world, priced at €895 for the gent’s model, it could be the cheapest chronometer-certified watch. Clous de Paris detailing Tissot have added some details that give the watch an appearance typical of…
Hamilton’s latest version of the Khaki Aviation X-Wind is an example of a fairly common trend in watches, making them look complicated and tough. This must be one of the meanest, toughest and most complex chronographs of all, with three crowns in addition to the usual chronograph pushers, and three rotating bezels. All this equipment…
The Hamilton Ventura was introduced on 3 January 1957, and so this year, 2017, Hamilton is commemorating the 60th anniversary of this distinctive triangular watch. It was designed by Richard Arbib and it was the first electrical, battery-powered watch in the world. It was initially named the Hamilton Electric 500 before becoming the Ventura. In…
At first sight the task of encapsulating the enormous distances of space into the restricted space of a watch seems impossible. But that is what the Hamilton ODC X-03 sets out to achieve. It depicts the view from the porthole of an imaginary spacecraft as it approaches a three-lobe space station in orbit above the…
The Longines Master Collection comprises some of the best-selling watches in the world, helping Longines maintain its place as fourth top-selling Swiss watch brand after Rolex, Omega and Cartier. The top seller by Longines is a watch in the Master collection, which was launched in 2005 and has all the characteristics required for good sales:…
Walter von Känel, born in 1941 and president of Longines since 1988, doesn’t have a computer in his office. He doesn’t have a smartphone. But he knows everyone in his company, and through his team of assistants, he knows every model in the vast Longines collection. More importantly, he knows how many are sold, and…
The Rush by Egard is currently available as a kickstarter campaign with delivery in December 2017. It celebrates Mixed Martial Arts athlete Georges St. Pierre, and its early-bird price is $465, which will become $1,200 as normal retail price. The watch has an unusual design, with a shaped case and rotating discs for the time…
A split-seconds chronograph, or a “Chronographe à rattrapante,” makes it possible to take intermediate chronograph readings while continuing to time a longer event. In a watch with the conventional arrangement of pushers, you start the chronograph by pressing the pusher at 2 o’clock, and the two chronograph seconds hands start moving around the dial, perfectly…