Omega has been the official timekeeper of the Olympic games since 1932 and it expects this arrangement to continue until 2032. The Omega Seamaster has a shorter history. It dates back to 1948 when it was introduced to celebrate Omega’s 100th anniversary. The earliest models were very simple with slender wedge-like hour markers, leaf hands,…
The Polaris Date by Jaeger-LeCoultre is an interesting timepiece, in part an everyday automatic watch, and in part a thoroughbred sports watch. It’s quite large at 42mm diameter and 13.1 mm thickness, but its steeply sloping lugs make it wearable and comfortable on the wrist. Vintage inspiration It’s interesting to compare the new Polaris Date…
The Jaeger-LeCoultre Polaris Chronograph is a superb watch, with a clear dial, sapphire caseback, 100 metres water resistance, movement with column wheel and vertical clutch, and easily interchangeable straps. Its price makes it relatively unaccessible to most people but it is a dream of a watch. It celebrates the classic 1968 Polaris Memovox in its…
The Polaris Automatic by Jaeger-LeCoultre is the brand’s entry-level sports watch. They’ve done a lot of good things with this watch. To create a new sports watch – a tough watch that can survive all sorts of conditions, and in particular contact with water – they returned to an archive timepiece, the 1968 Memovox Polaris,…
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Polaris Chronograph WT is a fantastic watch, it does everything to perfection, and it combines the chronograph function with a very functional world time display. It’s large at 44 mm, but it wears smaller, it’s only 12.5 mm thick, and the use of titanium makes it pleasantly light – lighter than the Polaris Automatic…
Laureato by Girard-Perregaux returned to the market in 2016, and this year at SIHH, the brand presented the Laureato Chronograph in 38 and 42 mm sizes, with a range of dial colours and strap or bracelet options: steel or pink gold, three dial colours, silver, black and dark blue. It is slim at 11.9 mm…
The Lady Arpels Planétarium by Van Cleef & Arpels does something ambitious. It reduces the vast expanses of space into a women’s watch 38 mm in diameter. To be more specific, the 149,600,000 million kilometres – which is also known as 1 AU, Astronomical Unit – separating the earth and the sun are scaled down…
The Polaris collection by Jaeger-LeCoultre was big news at SIHH, and the new Polaris Memovox is an important part of this new series of watches. They are all significant in that they mark a new departure for the brand, accessible sports watches. The new Memovox is visually based on the 1968 Memovox Polaris reference E859,…
To give it its complete name, L’Astronomo Luminor 1950 Tourbillon Moon Phases Equation of Time GMT by Panerai is a new version of L’Astronomo presented in 2010. That watch combined a tourbillon, calendar, equation of time, and sunrise and sunset times. The new version adds moon phases and a GMT hand. The most innovative feature…
This article is about the new Luminor Marina Logo 3 Days Acciaio by Panerai, presented at SIHH in January 2018. Like the Panerai Luminor Base Logo 3 Days Acciaio that I wrote about in the previous post, this watch provides all the fascination of the Panerai Luminor case and dial at a comparatively accessible price…
The new Luminor presented by Panerai at SIHH in January 2018 is good news for two reasons. It has a new hand-wound calibre with a 3-day power reserve, replacing the ETA 6497 used up until now. Panerai now doesn’t make any watches with ETA movements. This is good performance for the brand, whose first in-house…
The 1858 Geosphere by Montblanc is part of the celebrations of the 160th anniversary of Minerva, the watchmaking company in Villeret purchased by Richemont Group and assigned to Montblanc in 2007. The name of the collection, 1858, is a reference to the year in which Minerva was founded. The 1858 Geosphere is an interesting watch,…
The 1858 collection by Montblanc is developing very nicely, with its pilot’s inspired automatics and chronographs, and its creative use of colours and materials. The most striking piece shown by Montblanc at SIHH was this gigantic 1858 Pocket Watch Limited Edition 100, a 60mm watch, 20.8 mm thick. The two still photos provided by Montblanc…
IWC Schaffhausen is celebrating its 150th anniversary with this interesting watch, IWC Tribute to Pallweber, based on pieces in their historic collection. In addition to three wristwatch variants, it is also available as a pocket watch. They are all limited editions. Both the new Tribute to Pallweber and the original pocket watches that were made…
Mechanical watches with digital displays are rarer than most, and they have a long history. This year at SIHH, IWC celebrates its 150th anniversary with the “Tribute to Pallweber” edition. Last year, 2017, François-Paul Journe presented the third edition in the Vagabondage Series, named simply Vagabondage III. Digital displays, the problem is energy management The…
With the Altiplano Ultimate Automatic 910P, Piaget have decided to take back their record for the world’s thinnest automatic watch. It was theirs previously, and then in 2017 they lost it to Italian upstarts Bulgari who weighed in at 5.15 mm. The Piaget 910P does much better at just 4.3 mm thick, and it took…
Élégante is a quartz watch, but unlike any quartz watch seen before. It has a mechanical motion detector, visible on the dial through a small window, so that if you put the watch down, the hands stop moving after 30 minutes. But the electronic movement still keeps track of time. When you put it back…
Which was the best watch at SIHH 2018? Looking at the photo below, it may seem surprising to see a watch like this amongst the top watches at the Salon Internationale de la Haute Horlogerie. It has a classical dial and it doesn’t do anything revolutionary. But, when I was looking at the 1815 “Homage…
Skydance is a women’s watch by the brand Louis Moinet presented on occasion of the Geneva show SIHH. In addition to the Richemont Group brands – Panerai, Cartier, Piaget, Van Cleef & Arpels, Vacheron Constantin, IWC and so forth – SIHH also presents some smaller, artisanal brands. LVMH brands Hublot, Zenith and Tag Heuer are…
It feels a bit strange writing about the Wancher Storm Jet chronograph on 14 January 2018, the day before the start of SIHH, the show in Geneva that presents new watches by many of the world’s most prestigious brands, names such as Cartier, Panerai, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Piaget, Audemars Piguet, Parmigiani Fleurier and so forth. But one…