Best Super NEWS Watches
Photo Report: Midtown Manhattan
I used to love September for all the classic reasons. The back-to-school excitement, the sweater weather, the return to soup. But recently, due to my individual age and general change in the greater culture, the fresh-start fall feeling has been harder to find.?September is still summer.? But now, with folks returning to the office full-time or settling into the hybrid model, I can feel the slightest return to autumnal normalcy. Nowhere do I see it more than in the business-y areas of Manhattan. I've gone so long without seeing a finance dude in a fleece vest! Never thought I'd miss them but I did, and it's good to see them...
HODINKEE Picks Watches Under $10,000
Imagine that you woke up this morning to find $10,000 in your Venmo account. In the notes field you found the following improbably delightful message:?"Spend this on a watch (nothing illegal has transpired here) ??."? We asked some HODINKEE staffers to role-play this scenario and then tell us which watch they'd run off and buy. Below you will find a wide array of choices, some stretching to the very end of the budget, some coming in well below, all great choices. Read on and then, in the comments, let us know how you'd spend your own windfall.? Laine V38 ($9,765) Photo courtesy of Laine. ...
Arnold Schwarzenegger's Seiko Watch In 'Predator'
Here's a recipe for getting a movie greenlit in the 1980s: Cast Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hand him a weapon. Promise explosions, shots of his muscles, and a bevy of pithy one-liners. You've got yourself a hit.? The formula originated with James Cameron's Terminator (1984), though you could look back even further to Schwarzenegger's time as Conan (the barbarian, not the late-night talk show host), just without the guns C though technically even that still has "guns" if you think about it. In 1987, Schwarzenegger was in his prime when he took the role of Dutch in John McTiernan's Predator. The movie follows a group of mercenaries on a resc...
The Zenith El Primero With A Hi-Beat Movement
The year 1969 was a watershed moment for Zenith C marking the arrival of the now legendary El Primero automatic chronograph movement. For years, it stood as the caliber against which all others would be measured. Even after the Quartz Crisis had its way with Zenith, the lore of the El Primero remained C so much so that Rolex used the caliber as the basis for its first-ever automatic Daytona movement (the Crown abides). Years later, Zenith C along with the El Primero C remains a fixture and lodestar of the automatic chronograph game. Today, we look at the latest innovation of the EP. That's right, today we turn our eyes to the new...
The Horological Society Of New York To Hold Classes In Silicon Valley and Boston
The?Horological Society of New York's?award-winning classes are on the road again! HSNY is returning to the Silicon Valley on September 16 and 17, 2022, with hosts?Chopard and ISSIMI. Then, on October 7 and 8, 2022, HSNY returns to Boston with hosts The Escapement Club. At HSNY's?Horological Education classes,?students discover what actually makes a watch tick under the guidance of the HSNY's staff of professional watchmakers. Students work on a mechanical watch movement, studying the gear train, winding and setting mechanisms, and escapement. The weekend half-day classes cover everything taught during the individual evening classes held in New York.Enrollm...
The Octo Finissimo Skeleton 8 Days Has A Long Long Power Reserve
Geneva Watch Days?takes place in the Swiss cultural capital from Monday, August 29, to Thursday, September 1, 2022, so stay tuned to HODINKEE in the days ahead for detailed coverage of all the top releases, from brands such as Bulgari, MB&F, Oris, Urwerk, and many more. Bulgari, a brand known for words like "thinnest" and "world record," is bringing the word "new" to the table today by way of the Octo Finissimo Skeleton 8 Days. It's the sort of release that does all the heavy lifting right there in the name. It tees up effectively everything about the piece, enabling this watch writer to leave it at that and move on to other things (maybe I'll pick up a new l...
The New Middle Class Of Watchmaking Is Unexpectedly Thriving
You aren't imagining things C?watches are more expensive than ever.?Inflation is rising, interest rates are soaring, and so is geopolitical uncertainty. Income inequality statistics have become downright depressing. So I guess it makes a bit of sense why I keep hearing that the American middle class is shrinking. I'm no economist, but the consistent refrain of a diminished petite bourgeoisie started me down the road of thinking about the inherent hierarchical structure involved in today's watch business, and how rapidly the industry has changed. Where there was once a fairly clear and consistent separation between the entry-level, the mid-tier, and the high-end r...
The New Oris Divers Sixty-Five Caliber 400 12H Is A Surprise Tool Watch
Geneva Watch Days?takes place in the Swiss cultural capital from Monday, August 29, to Thursday, September 1, 2022, so stay tuned to HODINKEE in the days ahead for detailed coverage of all the top releases, from brands such as Bulgari, MB&F, Oris, Urwerk, and many more. Oris just announced a pretty sweet tool watch as part of Geneva Watch Days, which kicked off today in Switzerland. The new release is part of the main Divers Sixty-Five collection, features the company's in-house-designed caliber 400, and has an unexpected bezel format, featuring 12 one-hour markers. Believe it or not, today's rele...
Back To School, HODINKEE Style
Today is the start of the Labor Day holiday weekend in the United States. Intended to recognize the American Labor Movement and the history of working people in the USA, the three-day weekend consists of a federal holiday on the first Monday in September and more broadly, marks a more general shift from summer to fall. Over the years, it's taken on some other cultural meanings that apply to watchmaking and watch-wearing.? The perfect pre/post Labor Day watch rotation? A famously outdated rule in fashion is that Labor Day is the last time you're supposed to wear white outdoors until next summer rolls around C and for many...
Introducing The Louis Vuitton Tambour Twenty Limited Edition
Louis Vuitton has been around since 1854, but the company's watchmaking division didn't get its start until exactly two decades ago, when the inaugural Tambour collection was launched in 2002. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the company's "official" start in the watchmaking arena, as well as of its most recognizable case design, Louis Vuitton has just announced the Tambour Twenty Limited Edition.?The new release comes in a 200-piece limited run with a sunburst brown-dialed chronograph inside the quintessential Tambour case shape and powered by a Louis Vuitton-branded variant of Zenith's El Primero.? Since today's release is ...
The Titanium AP Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon ref. ref. 26730TI.OO.1320TI.04
Audemars Piguet is starting the new month with a new Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon. The latest entry in the company's ongoing 50th-anniversary blowout of the iconic stainless steel sport watch, today's new release is particularly eye-catching, featuring a blue-green dial in customary "Grande Tapisserie" fashion, a 41mm 10.7mm titanium case, and the swanky, spinning action of the flying tourbillon at six o'clock. This new version of the Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon 41mm joins a trio of releases that were introduced in January during the first flurry of Royal Oak anniversary releases this year. As we pointed ...
New Bulgari Pink Gold Octo Finissimo GMT and Octo Finissimo Automatic In Yellow and Pink Gold
Geneva Watch Days?takes place in the Swiss cultural capital from Monday, August 29, to Thursday, September 1, 2022, so stay tuned to HODINKEE in the days ahead for detailed coverage of all the top releases, from brands such as Bulgari, MB&F, Oris, Urwerk, and many more. The Chronograph GMT Automatic Earlier this year the good folks at Bulgari released two slightly funky, titanium 'Sketch' Octo Finissimo watches, an Octo Finissimo Automatic and an Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT, to celebrate 10 years of the Octo line. The party isn't over as the brand rolls out new variations of both the Chronograph and the Automatic in pre...
Everything You Need To Know About Trilobe Watches
Geneva Watch Days?takes place in the Swiss cultural capital from Monday, August 29, to Thursday, September 1, 2022, so stay tuned to HODINKEE in the days ahead for detailed coverage of all the top releases, from brands such as Bulgari, MB&F, Oris, Urwerk, and many more. Almost exactly five months ago to this day, during Watches & Wonders 2022, I received a WhatsApp message from Nick Marino, HODINKEE's editorial boss and all-around main man. We were at opposite ends of the Palexpo, Geneva's cavernous convention center where the exhibition is held, finishing up separate meetings and executing our team's general "divide and conqu...
The New Doxa Stainless Steel Army Model
Geneva Watch Days?takes place in the Swiss cultural capital from Monday, August 29, to Thursday, September 1, 2022, so stay tuned to HODINKEE in the days ahead for detailed coverage of all the top releases, from brands such as Bulgari, MB&F, Oris, Urwerk, and many more. Some mysteries are better left unsolved. What does the CIA's Special Activities Center actually do? No one knows C and it's better that way. The same goes for the mystery around the origins of the Doxa Army. Rumor has it that in the late '60s Doxa created a blacked-out watch based on the Sub 300T for military applications. It was called the "Army" and featured blocky indices and a "bullseye d...
The Greubel Forsey GMT Balancier Convexe
Geneva Watch Days?takes place in the Swiss cultural capital from Monday, August 29, to Thursday, September 1, 2022, so stay tuned to HODINKEE in the days ahead for detailed coverage of all the top releases, from brands such as Bulgari, MB&F, Oris, Urwerk, and many more. Ever attempting to offer the whole world for your wrist, Greubel Forsey is back with the GMT Balancier Convexe, a brand-new take on their GMT format. With a curved titanium case and convex sapphire crystal, this latest entry into the brand's growing Convexe collection is an evolution of Greubel Forsey's work in offering travel-themed designs that effectively blend the functions of a GMT, a wor...
The 40mm De Bethune DB25sQP Perpetual Calendar
Geneva Watch Days?takes place in the Swiss cultural capital from Monday, August 29, to Thursday, September 1, 2022, so stay tuned to HODINKEE in the days ahead for detailed coverage of all the top releases, from brands such as Bulgari, MB&F, Oris, Urwerk, and many more. De Bethune has recently announced a major evolution of its flagship DB25 Perpetual Calendar in the new DB25sQP, a version that features a smaller case size than previous iterations of the brand's now-longstanding QP. Originally launched in 2011, the DB25 QP has long featured a 44mm case size, but for 2022, that all changes as this latest generation measures just 40 millimeters wide.? ...
The Oris Divers Sixty-Five Caliber 400 12H
Over the years I have had what I'll call an infatuation with the Divers Sixty-Five line from Oris. Early on in my watch enthusiasm, I remember finding a small watch shop that carried Oris watches and laying my eyes on the D65 with that funky mid-century design i.e. those ultra stylized Arabic numerals.? Years later, mere days after accepting my HODINKEE offer, I wandered into yet another small watch shop on a busy street in Washington D.C. that also happened to be an Oris retailer. It was there I saw a different, let's say more conventionally designed, Divers with a blue dial and recycled textile strap. I didn't buy either watch, but the infatuation and curiosity...
A Night At The Audemars Piguet Hotel: The H?tel des Horlogers
When I got back to Geneva from the La Valle de Joux on a Tuesday morning after a two-night stay during the soft opening of H?tel des Horlogers, a 50-room luxury hotel that officially opened in June in Le Brassus, the four people I know in Geneva, all watch people, set upon me: How was the AP Hotel? Four times I corrected them, "It is not the AP Hotel. It's the H?tel des Horlogers. Built on the site where the H?tel De France once stood, so-called because of its proximity to the border of France, this has been a gathering place for lovers of horology since 1857, when watchmakers from all over La Valle de Joux? came here to ship their watches to Geneva. This...
The New Bulgari Aluminium Sorayama Special Edition
Geneva Watch Days?takes place in the Swiss cultural capital from Monday, August 29, to Thursday, September 1, 2022, so stay tuned to HODINKEE in the days ahead for detailed coverage of all the top releases, from brands such as Bulgari, MB&F, Oris, Urwerk, and many more. It would seem that Bulgari considers the Aluminum line ripe for collaboration. It seems like only yesterday that the rubber-bezel watch was given the Ducati treatment. But time marches ever onward and so do the folks at Bulgari, so here we are with a new collaboration that brings together the time-and-date Aluminum watch with the chrome-heavy aesthetics of Jap...
Two New Colorful Watches From Czapek & Cie
Geneva Watch Days?takes place in the Swiss cultural capital from Monday, August 29, to Thursday, September 1, 2022, so stay tuned to HODINKEE in the days ahead for detailed coverage of all the top releases, from brands such as Bulgari, MB&F, Oris, Urwerk, and many more. Czapek & Cie is delivering a new variation on its well-known Quai des Bergues, a model the brand has been producing for some time now. Where the first iteration was the winner of the 2016 GPHG Public Prize, the ensuing years saw the brand introduce dial variations on the design, including a cool guilloche? number in 2018. That guilloche? dial with what the brand calls a Ricochet pattern is...