With many of our friends in Europe heading back to work this week, and many parts of the United States showing signs that theres indeed a road map charting a course towards the light at the end of this tunnel, our twice-weekly Instagram Live show ABTW at HOME rambles on with two new guests whove both launched new watches in April and May and cant wait to join you on Instagram to answer your questions.FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM WEDNESDAY, MAY 13th at 9:00am PST // 12:00pm EST: VJ GERONIMOOur Wednesday [...]

Easily the quirkiest and most entertaining-to-describe watch collection produced by German?A. Lange Sohne is the Zeitwerk. Originally debuted about a decade ago, the Zeitwerk collection is typified by its digital hour and digital minute display for the time, along with a traditional analog subsidiary seconds dial and power reserve indicator. The overall design of the watch is inspired by an historic digital clock in Dresdens opera house that was developed in collaboration with the founder of th [...]

Few modern watchmakers measure up to Cartier when it comes to century-old, yet evergreen, designs. We feel like we could write a book on Cartier watch design evolution - but well spare you that and instead will shift focus right away to the new-for-2020 Cartier Santos-Dumont XL Hand-Wind watch collection, a range of three new watches, all with a Piaget-derived hand-wound movement, lowered prices, and now a steel variant.The Cartier Santos has played a major role in carving the path not only for [...]

Sponsored Post written for by advertiserSwiss watchmaker Maurice Lacroix is proud to present one of its most enticing sales events ever. For Black Friday 2018, any watch in the best-selling Maurice Lacroix Pontos S collection is being offered at 70% off the current retail price. Thats right, 70% off Pontos S Chronograph watches while inventory remains available.The Pontos S Chronograph watch collection has been featured a number of times on with the watch review magazine editors call it one of [...]

There are more new Code 11.59 watches for 2021, including this particularly attractive (and high) skeletonized tourbillon version. What is the most immediately distinctive about the novel reference 26600CR.OO.D009KB.01 Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 Tourbillon Openworked is the two-tone case, which makes use of both 18k white and pink gold. Audemars Piguet was always clear that the Code 11.59 case was meant to be modular, and thus rendered in different ways, with different materials. This is to be e [...]

Doing anything different that doesnt smack of trying too hard is really tough in the world of watch design. In 1978, Henri DOrigny did just that. And the Hermes Arceau Petite Lune is the perfect expression of that genius.A Classic RebornThe Hermes Arceau family of watches is known for three?things: its asymmetrical?lugs, its sloping dial, and its slanted Arabic numerals, which are supposed to communicate the speed of a galloping horse. The latter reason is the whimsical justification of an elega [...]

It is cool to see the Swatch Group fill out more of its brands affordable collections with upgraded ETA movements and COSC chronometer-certified versions at that. The Mido Multifort Chronometer is the latest to join the slowly expanding club with its Caliber 80 Si. This means the Mido Multifort Chronometer offers an overall package with not only the movements technical benefits but some horological interest as well, all in a handsome if straightforward presentation very much in line with Midos p [...]

I recently nominated a few key luxury watch brands for a reader poll on Luxist.com. The poll was to determine what brand people considered to be the top luxury brand. Not exactly a scientific study, but it is interested to see what people who read the worlds top luxury blog had to say on the topic. It wasnt too difficult to consider the nominees. It wasnt a matter of who necessary made the best looking or most mechanically perfect watches, but rather about perception.As such, I made the obvious [...]

The 9S family of movements represents Grand Seikos modern range of mechanical watches, and Seiko is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Following three-hand models introduced at Baselworld 2018, the newest 9S GMT limited edition watch has seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Seiko wants the new Grand Seiko GMT SBGM235G 9S Mechanical 20th Anniversary watch to remind everyone of its mechanical movement producing history, which of course goes further back than the 20-year-old 9S series. This [...]

Sponsored Post written for by advertiser.If youve never experienced one of the Red Bull Air Race World Championship races in person, its difficult to appreciate what makes air racing so daring, interesting, technical, and incredibly exciting! Speed, precision and, of course, timing are absolutely vital for the pilots, who fly around the air race obstacle course at up to 270 mph, performing stunts as they go. There arent many sports where the athletes try to impress the crowd with their skills a [...]

New for 2019 is the Patek Philippe 5212A Calatrava Weekly Calendar watch, which debuts a new calendar function that displays the week number in addition to the day of the week. The watch comes in a steel case, which is always of note when we are talking about Patek Philippe. Its another quirky Calatrava watch like the 6006G that goes a bit off the beaten path from the watches that Patek buyers demand most.Keeping with ISO 8601 standards, Patek chose Monday to be the first day of the week, rather [...]

When met up with Omega to cover some of its new 2021 watch releases, it became immediately clear how important materials science was to the team in Bienne, Switzerland. For Omega, that means two things this year. First, it means new ways of finishing popular materials like ceramic. But it also means introducing new materials and techniques, such as Bronze Gold, as well as a new more scratch-resistant aluminum anodization technique used for some bezel inserts (as is the case in the new steel-cas [...]

This skeletonized moonphase version of the Hermes Slim (Slim dHermes) is a particularly nice high-end timepiece that is also probably easy to miss. has reviewed versions of the Hermes Slim in the past, and it is among our favorite contemporary dress watches out there. The Paris-based luxury house does something really nice with these watches, and the Vaucher (which Hermes owns part of) Swiss Made movements, which are contained within them. This particular Hermes Slim is noteworthy for the skele [...]

When it comes to categorizing watches, we tend to organize them by the strict purposes their styles were originally meant for. That translates into a world of dive watches, pilot watches, racing watches, formal watches, business watches, etc A category that only loosely exists in the traditional sense but that is nevertheless extremely important is travel watches. What is a travel watch? Well, traditionally, a pocket watch was the original travel watch because it was designed to be portable. Mor [...]

Despite the long-standing popularity of the Big Pilots Watch series and IWCs status as one of the most prolific pilots chronograph makers in the industry, the brand has never brought a chronograph complication to the line-until now. Rather than simply introducing a chronograph complication to the familiar flieger-style IWC design, the brand ensures this first-ever Big Pilots Watch chronograph stands out by blending the ornate aesthetics of the Le Petit Prince sub-series with a chronograph execut [...]

Originally released almost two decades ago now, the Breitling Aerospace is a wildly popular model that underwent a series of minor visual updates over the years. The watch has recently sort of been off the radar as Breitling focused on other watches ? especially those mechanical ones with higher profit margins. The turn in the economy has allowed (forced) them to re-shift their focus on some of their more reasonably priced luxury instrument watches. At Baselworld this year they released a brand [...]

Pre-WWII chronographs built by Minerva are among some of the most criminally underrated vintage watches of that particular era, so it should come as no surprise that with Montblancs purchase of the Villeret-based manufactory in 2004, wed see plenty of subsequent visits to the archives, as well as implementation in Montblancs modern offerings. This has been executed in various forms to great effect-including the stainless steel 1858 Chronograph Tachymeter introduced in 2016, but what we hadnt see [...]

It was in 2009 that A. Lange Sohne released the original Zeitwerk watch and, oddly enough, Ive never fully covered it on , despite having a great fondness for the piece. Five years later in 2014, and suddenly we have our first hands-on look at a timepiece Ive always loved. Better late then never, right? It just goes to show that there are timepieces I admire which seem to fall through the cracks for one reason or another. There have been a range of Zeitwerk models since then, including the rece [...]

The use of materials in innovative and beneficial ways is the current space race in contemporary mechanical watches, and Panerai wants to show that its no slouch in this arena. The brand-new-for-2017 Panerai LAB-ID Luminor 1950 Carbotech 3 Days PAM 700 watch utilizes different materials in its movement that have reduced friction to a minimum. In fact, the brand claims that this reduction of friction should allow the movement to?be guaranteed for 50 years due to the fact that it does not need lub [...]

It is ironic (and sad), that literally a week or two after I visited the Audemars Piguet Watch Museum in Le Brassus, it was burglarized! Yup, flat out heist. The thieves scaled the sides of the building with a ladder, broke into a window and ran off across the border into France with some watches. I am not sure what they were able to run off with. The museum is designed such that the exhibits are each in highly secured vault style rooms. Meaning that if you break into one room, chances are that [...]