At Baselworld 2017, Eberhard & Co. celebrate their 130th anniversary with a new version of their classic Chrono 4 with four counters in a row. The counters display minutes, hours, 24 hours and small-seconds, with date at 12 o’clock. It’s a very unusual chronograph, launched originally in 2001. The arrangement was patented by Eberhard and…
In the Cat’s Eye collection, Girard-Perregaux speaks exclusively to women, with watches featuring diamond-setting and horizontal or vertical oval cases. The new Cat’s Eye Celestial has a mother-of-pearl dial with a radial guilloché finish, and a large moon phase display with a deep blue aventurine night sky. The large moon disc is almost 9 mm…
Georg by Lang & Heyne is a tribute to classical German watchmaking, but the display caseback reveals an in-house calibre with some very contemporary characteristics. Lang & Heyne, a company based in Dresden Lang & Heyne was founded in Dresden in 2001 by Marco Lang (born in 1971) and Mirko Heyne. Mirko left in 2003…
The new Girard-Perregaux 1966 WW.TC – World-Wide Time Control – presented at SIHH in January 2017, changes everything with respect to the previous version. The chronograph function has been removed, and the second crown at 9 o’clock, absent in the 2013 version, has been reintroduced and provides a distinctive look to the watch. The dial…
Occasionally you see a watch that does something completely different. This is the area of “nouvelle horlogerie,” and Dōdekal One D110 by MCT, Manufacture Contemporaine du Temps, is the perfect example. The watch has a large digital hours display right at the centre, with the looks of the classic luminous digit that was a feature…
For Cartier, one of the themes of the year 2017 is the mystery clock, a concept that they have now transferred to watches. The Rotonde De Cartier Skeleton Mysterious Hour Watch sets the hour and minute hands floating in space; the Rotonde de Cartier Minute Repeater Mysterious Double Tourbillon instead showcases the tourbillon which rotates…
The Panthère Joueuse by Cartier is a lovely concept, superbly executed in terms of both jewellery and movement. A panther cub in diamonds, with two emerald eyes and touches of black in lacquer, rotates around the dial, the paw indicating the minutes. It is chasing after a ball, a single diamond, that marks the hours.…
Baume & Mercier have presented two chronographs with Valjoux 7750 movements as part of the Clifton Shelby Cobra collection. While the brand’s primary focus is on reference 10344, with a flyback chronograph, 10342 and 10343 are also two attractive watches, with a far more accessible price at 3,900 Swiss francs, €4,100, US $4,450. Consistent design…
The Baume & Mercier Shelby Cobra Limited Edition reference M0A10344 is a flyback chronograph and a tribute to the Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupé car. It’s a good-looking piece, undoubtedly the most distinctive watch in Baume & Mercier’s 2017 collection. Like previous versions of the flyback chronograph in the Capeland series, this watch is fairly expensive…
The Clifton Club by Baume & Mercier is one of a relatively new breed, sports watches with the connotations of a diver’s watch, but intended for everyday use (click here for the Top Ten Sports Watches). Baume & Mercier have recently shown a great deal of attention to sociological aspects, with watches designed specifically as…
The Audemars Piguet Perpetual Calendar has been an important part of the Royal Oak collection for many years, and this version in black ceramic continues its development. Initially a 39mm watch, the Perpetual Calendar was increased in size to 41 mm in 2012. Likewise, its self-winding calibre 5134 is also based on its predecessor, calibre…
Audemars Piguet celebrates the 40th anniversary of the women’s Royal Oak with a new jewellery technique, frosted gold. It’s also a story of three designers: Gérald Genta, who created the first Royal Oak in 1972, Jacqueline Dimier, the designer who redesigned Genta’s watch in a version for women, and Carolina Bucci, contemporary jewellery designer from…
Watches today are becoming chunkier and more colourful, moving away from the appearance typical of a functional, scientific, practical timepiece. This is not the case for A. Lange & Söhne, whose watches retain their timeless, sober style, and, whatever their value, remain pieces that could be worn during everyday life without raising eyebrows. They are…
In 2007, when it was introduced, the Lange 31 was the world record holder for power reserve in a mechanical watch, reaching 31 days, 744 hours. Since then, other watches have exceeded this, but the Lange 31 is still the watch with a classic case design having the highest power reserve. It’s large, 46 mm…
Baselworld is approaching, and all the watch nerds going there know that we’re going to see the usual swathe of chronographs based on the Valjoux 7750 calibre, which has been with us since 1973 and shows no signs of wanting to retire. This movement has helped perpetuate the chronograph layout with two or three subdials,…
With the 1770 Flying Tourbillon Openwork, Manufacture Royale gives the existing Androgyne Royale a different, even more elemental case. While in the Androgyne Royale there were an indication of the hours by means of 12 screws on the bezel, in the new 1770 Flying Tourbillon watch for 2017, the case is smooth and circular, and…
Sometimes you see a timepiece that has a detail that lifts it above the vast ocean of watches. Bovet 1822 offers a good example with the Récital 19 Miss Dimier, an elliptical watch with a diamond-set bezel, designed specifically for women. The touch of brilliance is in the hour and minute hands, which are designed…
The three new versions of Manufacture Royale’s 1770 Micromegas Révolution were first presented at Salon QP, London, in 2016, and then in Geneva in January 2017. It is a lovely double tourbillon, made in three limited editions, each of just three watches. They are also innovative in their colours, bright and sophisticated. Meet Micro and…
Metropolis by Louis Moinet, presented in Geneva in January 2017, expresses a move by the company headed by Jean-Marie Schaller to create something more contemporary, at a lower price point than their previous watches. Schaller calls Metropolis an “urban watch,” with a very architectural structure. The case frames a series of levels, with the dial…
The UR-106 Flower Power by Urwerk is a new version of the 106 watch with wandering hours, launched in 2015. The diamond-setting has been extended from the case and crown to include flowers incorporated into the wandering hour satellites. The case has a more feminine size with respect to the men’s versions but it’s still…