It’s often said that the 5513 is the prototypical dive watch. It’s a panacea, sitting on top of modern dive watch genealogy like Gengis Khan in Mongolia. But what I find very interesting about that time in watch design is that it didn’t have to be that way. People tried...

JN Shapiro is living proof that you can wake up one day, have one too many espressos, and say ‘You know what? I’m going to make a watch better than the Swiss can.’ But then actually do it. The former part of that process, well, I must get a dozen...

Let’s not mince words, this 33.3 is achingly beautiful. And significant, as this calibre is the grandfather to all our beloved 321 chronographs. How often do you see an Omega chronograph with an onion crown, Breguet hands, Breguet numerals, and enamel dial? Yeah, it’s basically just this. It makes me...

Some watches just make sense. The 1016 Explorer, that’s a design that makes sense. The Speedmaster too, seems like someone thought about it. Even the Lange 1, in all its artfulness, was made according to ratios and math . . .as if the Germans could do anything else. Other watches,...

Emma Watson once famously advocated for modesty as the ultimate expression of sexiness. Here’s the quote: ‘What’s sexy about saying, ‘I’m here with my boobs out and a short skirt, have a look at everything I’ve got?’ My idea of sexy is that less is more. The less you reveal...

This is what we call a Dufourgraph, and that’s more interesting than it may sound outright. Think for a second of all the many watches nicknamed in honor of people. There are Paul Newmans, McQueens (he never actually wore that one, look it up), Jean-Claude Killys, Yves Kleins, Nina Rindts,...

For at least a decade, I have loathed derivative design. I don’t know what it says about all large Swiss watchmakers that the best ideas they can come up with already passed a half-decade earlier. The Submariner marching on without change like a 911 is one thing, but Omega literally...

The 1601 Datejust is precisely what someone who doesn’t know watches imagines when you say ‘a nice watch’. This is one unit of Rolex, in exactly the same way that you would purchase one foot of fabric for curtains (or one meter for our more cultured friends, we know we’re...

There’s something a bit bizarre about spending a quarter million on a military watch because it was once, ‘just a tool’. For example, I wouldn’t spend that on a hammer used to erect a barracks in Iraq because it was also once a tool. I wouldn’t even spend that on...

There’s nothing quite as brave as finishing second and handing yourself a jersey with ‘THE FIRST’ on the back of it. And yet, that’s this Zenith’s story. It’s not just brave though, it’s eccentric. Zenith also crossed the finish line with more style than anyone else by some margin. And...

Last week, I had to buy a new desk chair. This is a thrilling start, I know. But in the modern age that proved to be mind-bogglingly complex task. There were chairs that looked like they should be on the starship Enterprise or chairs that looked like they should be...

Very quietly, Lange have been releasing some absolute killer dials under the Little Lange 1 umbrella. Little is a bit of a misnomer, as there’s really nothing little about this watch in effort or proportion. This is more accurately the midsized Lange 1, a 36.5mm take on Germany’s best golden...

For many years, Tudor hardcores had been noting Snowflake Subs with an odd combination of round hour markers, snowflake hands, and shield dials. They all seemed to emanate from Canada and often retired Royal Canadian Navy personnel. Scholars had known for many years that there were Tudor Submariners issued to...

For two years, I drove a black on black Defender 110 (the old one) everywhere. This is not a normal look in the United States. Additionally, I am not a small man. Everywhere I arrived, people assumed I was a drug dealer. Now, that’s actually not as bad as it...

If there is a god, I like to imagine that tropical dials are his way of saying, ‘wear your damn watches’. The sun is a ball of nuclear chaos 8.3 light minutes away from Earth. But its effects are not always this attractive. Consider for example the female residents of...

Of all the many adjectives one could throw at this 7928 including tropical, ghost, gilt, and PCG, I believe the most interesting may be antifragile. That word has more depth than the etymology alone may suggest. Nassim Taleb, a Lebanese author and risk analyst, has a book on the topic....

Becoming truly obsessed with watches can elicit many unintended consequences: financial ruin, loneliness, a sudden urge to wear cardigans, and, perhaps most surprisingly, an expertise in materials science and metallurgy. This last pair comes mostly from the independent watchmakers, who seem to be running an unspoken competition to see who...

Without doubt, this is one of the most curious IWCs to ever wear the name Ingenieur. The 3805 is a mecha-quartz chronograph with alarm complication in a 34.5mm steel case unlike any other. The design feels influenced by aviation, Genta, and a fascination with knurling. It’s not what first comes...