Everyone wants to feel special. But when Cartier agree to make you dial to your specification, you actually are, by definition. We all aspire to be VVIPs of Cartier, that’s the simple truth. But the kind of buying history that requires is enough to make an oil Sheikh gasp. So...

Neo-vintage is not just collectable in Patek, VC, or AP; the era has more practical offerings as well. One, largely unsung, is the transitional 76100 Tudor sub. The reference was in production for just a few years in the mid-to-late 80s, but the 94110 ‘Snowflake’ of the same period stole...

A small but vocal section of the vintage watch collecting community has for years tried to make the case that Enicar’s sport watches from the 1960s and 1970s measure up to their counterparts from Rolex and Omega. This Sherpa Jet can and should be Exhibit A in their case. This...

Zodiac’s 1960s Sea Wolf is a vintage Fifty Fathoms of the people: every bit as storied, much less recognized, and way more fun. It gets overlooked often, but the Sea Wolf was one of the earliest commercial dive watches, released in 1953 alongside the Fifty Fathoms at Basel Fair. Its...

This is a beautiful bit of autobiographical revisionist history. This is the ‘Olympic Official Timekeeper’, the most handsome of three chronographs made in homage to stopwatches which Omega used at their first olympics in 1932. Omega are so fond of a limited edition that a few gems have slipped through...

Safety has never looked so sexy. Volvo make sensible cars for sensible people. I have many friends for whom an XC90 is more akin to the family dog than a mode of transport. As someone who comes from a very Swedish family, I can assure you the Swedish do not...

To me, John Krasinski will always be the guy from The Office: affable, mild-mannered, agreeable. But have you seen his recent work? Some time around 2014, he hit what I call the Hollywood second puberty. Then came the traditional Men’s Health magazine cover, a 13 Hours of Benghazi role, and...

There is an unspoken rule, one which I’ve completely made up, in Rolex. If someone is wearing a dial without any indices, made of some exotic material, they’re doing so because they’re well enough off to advertise that they don’t need to know the time. They own it; they may...

Yesterday, in an airport lounge, I spotted what I think was a Massa RM 011. What I’m about to say is not morally justifiable. Whenever I see someone over the age of 25 wearing an RM, I don’t think ‘Nice watch, I’m sure they love it.’ And that’s what I...

Chopard set out in the late 90s with a blank check and Mr. Parmigiani on side to show the world they could do serious watchmaking. While most of the world is familiar with their first effort, the calibre 1.96, the second evolution 1.98 is little less discussed. Yes, the 1.96...

In my town, there is a restaurant called The Kitchen, which happens to be owned and operated by Elon Musk’s brother, Kimbal, who if you didn’t know is a restauranteur. It does three things really well: First, the menu is never overwhelming, a few simple entrées executed perfectly, matching the...

Contrary to what it may seem here, I dislike spending money on anything but watches and a decent dinner out. It’s why I’ve owned the same pair of Wolverine boots for seven years. My car is about a decade old and I won’t replace it until children become a thing,...

This is one of Omega’s best kept secrets. It’s the Seamaster De Ville 321, yes that calibre 321, and in many ways it’s the antithesis of modern Omega. In the era of mass automated luxury good production, it’s increasingly difficult to make something feel special. As a result, we get...

You should always read the caseback, but also know what you’re looking at. There’s the famous story where Dr Jim Norton, driver of the Porsche Cayman team which won the GX Class at the 2013 24 Hours of Daytona, brought his Daytona to a Tampa jeweler to be told it...

As a general rule, Marvel movies bore the will to live out of me. I see a bunch of attractive people in tight clothing making jokes that all feel like they’ve been through several focus groups. Creative narrative does not tend to arise from these ingredients. However, it seems at...

Of all the rare Japanese dive watches, this is doubtless one of the rarest and Japanese-est in its innovation and attention to detail. The 6215 is the second crack Seiko ever took at the dive watch problem and arguably their first very serious effort, taking full advantage of totally vertically...

The feeling I got the first time I tried on a tailored suit in a fabric I’d picked out was not unlike losing virginity, there was a sense of total opportunity as if the world had just blossomed. This feeling, too, arose when I spent a week learning how wheel...

The way I explain what a rattrapante is to non-watch people is simple. I say, ‘It’s like a mechanical stopwatch, but magic . . .just watch.’ Then, as the watch enthusiast, you have the pleasure of watching their mind explode in slow motion as one chronograph hand freezes an event...