Richard Mille joins the thin watch craze in 2011 with their 6.30mm thick Extra Flat Automatic RM 033 watch. For the complexity of a Richard Mille watch case 6.30mm thick is pretty darn good. The brand makes sure to maintain as much of the signature look as possible in the design of the case and they also made it round. The hour numeral style is not new, but taken from the Richard Mille RM 017 Tourbillon (that actually was finally released this year).For the RM 033 (RM033), Richard Mille makes t [...]
If there was one refrain echoed around Baselworld 2018, it was that far too many brands were playing it safe, hedging bets on the vintage re-issue trend with forgotten, back catalog editions. Blancpain sort of did this last year with the Milspec, but that watch was tied to a very specific vintage Fifty Fathoms model, and didnt feel like too much of a departure from the modern Fifty Fathoms collection, which has consistently maintained strong ties with its source material over the years. This yea [...]
Here is the beautiful and uncommonly sporty new Polo Chronograph from Piaget that debuted at SIHH this year. What I really like is this video from TheTimeTV.com that has Piaget themselves casually discuss the watch. I love hearing that smooth French accent discuss this fine offering, from a fine watch company. Interestingly enough their primary focus, is my primary focus: ease of life with the watch. They arent going on about the luxury of the watch, but rather the functions, comfort and overall [...]
With the competition out there for the luxury buyer, watches dont always just sell themselves, even if they are really beautiful. Sometimes a bad sell can cast an pale yellow light on an otherwise excellent timepiece. Let me tell you what is wrong with this approach:The Good: It is a video, and it shows the watch clean and from most angles. It has accurate information (if you care to listen). Oh, and the video actually plays and is accessible on YouTube (not that watch buyers are going there). [...]
Having been a life-long fan of Formula 1, I cannot help but get excited about any and all times when I see a watch brand get involved in my favorite car race. Continuing?on that personal note, for?twenty years, what Formula 1 meant to me was that goose bump-inducing, screaming sound of V10 car engines revving to over 19,000 rpm as I witnessed these?vicious?cars racing neck-in-neck on some of the greatest tracks on this planet. Thanks?to some recently introduced, polar bear-friendly regulations, [...]
Swiss Breguets top new watch for 2019 is the Breguet Classique Tourbillon Extra-Plat Squelette 5395 which takes the willing in-house made and decorated caliber 581 and presents it in an incredible skeletonized form. It isnt cheap, but Breguets new easily wearable masterpiece is a satisfying combination of modern watchmaking technical prowess and traditional decoration techniques. I like this to think of it as the traditional-looking watch that yesterday they wished could be made.Thats what I adm [...]
Today, Montblanc unveiled six models in its new Heritage collection. While the four non-limited models are definitely interesting, I found the real stars of the show to be these two limited-edition models. These are the Montblanc Heritage Manufacture Perpetual Calendar and the Montblanc Heritage Manufacture Pulsograph-two ultra limited models featuring in-house movements developed and inspired by Montblancs Villeret Manufacture previously called Minerva.Montblanc Heritage Manufacture Perpetual C [...]
Sponsored Content specially produced by for Glashutte Original.Introduced in 2019, the Spezialist collection brought a new breed of highly capable sports watches to Glashutte Original. The collection is split between vintage-inspired pieces with the SeaQ and SeaQ 1969, and contemporary references within the SeaQ Panorama Date series. Today, we take a closer look at the SeaQ Panorama Date and the all-new in-house testing procedures Glashutte Original implemented to assure real-world performance [...]
A new piece for 2016, the?Hublot?MP-05 LaFerrari Sapphire dresses Hublots Ferrari engine-inspired movement in?an all-sapphire case. Several years ago, Richard Mille was a pioneer in sapphire, releasing a timepiece produced from a single monolithic piece of this super-hard?crystal. It cost over $1,000,000, and since then Richard Mille has followed up with a few more sapphire crystal-cased watches each with comparable prices or even higher, reaching over $2,000,000.Compared to those timepieces, th [...]
Boat races and watches-a weird and yet?seemingly ever-green combination. A few years ago, IWC joined the craze and has?chosen to sponsor the Volvo Ocean Race, a remarkably challenging, round-the-world race that starts this October in Alicante, Spain, and terminates in Gothenburg, Sweden, in June 2015. With regards to?IWCs role more specifically, the brand is?the events Official Timekeeper, partner of?the Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing team, and sponsor of the 24-hour speed record.And while that does see [...]
I have noticed a trend: luxury watch brands are pairing off with other brands to create new versions of their existing watches. Now, this is by no means a new trend, but it is one that seems to have had an appreciable uptick as of late. Unsurprisingly, these collaborations focus in on other accouterments of a luxury lifestyle. When it comes to status symbols, owning your own plane certainly is up there, and for those who feel drawn to the products from Piper Aircraft, the new Raymond Weil Freela [...]
Watch What-If is a special column on aBlogtoRead.com that asks the playful question what if an iconic watch you know and love was offered in a different style? The idea embraces a good timepieces core design and has fun by offering new colors and material concepts to stimulate your senses. These ideas may be provocative, artistic, or just plain silly. This is about fun, Photoshop, and the celebration of wrist watch design and experimentation. The original design we work off will always be at the [...]
The Casio G-Shock range is one of the broadest and most diverse of any brand, delivering bulletproof durability and multi-functionality to a variety of market segments. The premium MT-G line, however, is where the brand truly gets to flex its creative muscle in combining advanced materials and finishes with the signature blend of rock-solid capability and toughness. The newest MT-G iteration, the MTGB1000XBD-1, is a perfect example of this, adding an updated black resin case with G-Shocks first- [...]
I am, it would appear, a sucker for a well-done dial.?To put an even finer point on it, if the dial treatment-matte vs gloss, smooth vs textured, flat vs dimensional, and so on-can manage to pull the entirety of a watch together, I am drawn in. Frankly, thats the closest Ive ever come to putting that sort of?je ne sais quoi into words.?Perhaps its simpler to just show an example.?Fortunately, weve got the recently-announced?Hermes Arceau 78 to help do just that.To be fair, when I first saw the p [...]
Tiffany Co. Streamerica Watch. Credit: WatchUSeek member slin-nycIf there has been one major theme to recognize over the last five or so years in the watch industry it is the rise of the retro-revival watch. What does that mean? It means that a love of vintage and celebrating tradition has swept over the entire industry. It means that to a large degree the watch design of today is influenced by the watch design of yesterday, and it also means that popular brands are releasing modern versions (e [...]
Breitling has expanded their Transocean Chronograph line, with the introduction of a GMT version into the range. The new Breitling Transocean Chronograph GMT makes for a practical and no-nonsense addition to this range of vintage inspired watches. The Transocean has been a successful line for Breitling, offering their well known name on watches that exhibit a more classic styling that is reminiscent of their Top Time models from the 1960s. You can see hands-on review of the Breitling Chronomat [...]
The luxury watch industrys love affair with vintage-inspired sports designs shows no signs of stopping in 2022, and while this years-long trend has produced a sea of direct vintage reissues, it has also given rise to a whole subgenre of sporting timepieces that capture the spirit of years gone by without directly referencing any one historic timepiece. The Longines Spirit series is one of the most successful examples of this intermediate breed of watches, blending the warmth and easy legibility [...]
Boy, what do I even say about this one? Jacob Co.s new ultra high-end, non diamond-studded watch for 2011 is this Cyclone Tourbillon. The watch has a large escapement which is actually on the front-mounted automatic rotor. Having things on the rotor is sort of a trend this year as Cartier did something similar with their Astroregulateur watch and Blancpain has a power reserve indicator on a rotor this year on a new L-evolution piece. Though the Cyclone is the first watch ever to have an actual [...]
You have probably already read the important news?here that, from?2017 onwards,?Grand Seiko?is?being presented as a separate brand from Seiko. On that note, our editor David wanted to make a couple of points before Kenny gives you all the details on the watches. There are a bunch of things to be expected from Seikos news, but if theres anything I think all team members will agree on it is that wed love for Seiko to become much,?much more organized. As a case in point are these very attractive n [...]
While the integrated bracelet, Gerald Genta-inspired sports watch trend is currently dominating the upper echelons of the luxury watch market, the style has only recently begun to wend its way into more affordable price brackets. Maurice Lacroix is something of an early trailblazer to this trend, with the stylish integrated Aikon forming the backbone of its lineup since 2016. With its central position in the brands stable and the integrated design hype showing no signs of slowing, its only natur [...]