IN-DEPTH: The anOrdain Model 2
The story in a second: The anOrdain Model 2 is an unbelievable dial at an unbelievable price. From where I’m sitting, 2019 has been a fairly quiet year on the watch front, thanks to a more fragmented release schedule than usual and a general sense of reticence on behalf of many big brands to push the boat out in what is euphemistically called a soft luxury market. Which is why the headline-grabbing hits have been few and far between. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is actually a pretty good state of affairs. The generally conservative slate of releases has been pretty good for the wearer: smart, incremental design upgrades benefit more people than brand new tourbillons (or whatever). It also means that people like me — professional watch reviewers — have to work a bit harder for their stories. I mean, there are only so many words we can write on a minor dial upgrade of an existing model. All this is a particularly long-winded way of saying that the anOrdain Model 2 is a watch I’ve been SUPER excited to get on my wrist since I first caught wind of it. Before I go into why I was…
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Editor’s note: It’s easy for the Rolex Yacht-Master 40 Everose Rolesor to get lost in the perpetual noise caused by some of its more popular siblings within Rolex’s Professional range. But to simply overlook this wristwatch would be a categorical mistake, because the Yacht-Master 40 has a great many positives when compared not just to timepieces from other manufacturers, but even other watches within the aforementioned Professional collection. For a start, because the Yacht-Master 40 is only waterproof to 100 metres, its case is actually a fair bit slimmer than something like the Submariner. This means that it’s arguably more versatile, fitting under a cuff, for example, far more easily. In addition, the Yacht-Master 40 houses Rolex’s Calibre 3235 movement, which is the Swiss marque’s latest generation movement and features the patented “Chronergy” escapement, Paramagnetic blue Parachrom hairspring and offers customers 70 hours of power reserve. And lastly, as our man Felix Scholz mentioned when he went hands-on with the watch, due to its distinctively dazzling 18k Everose Rolesor metal combination and arresting sunburst brown dial, the Yacht-Master 40 Everose Rolesor has proper genderless bandwidth, and could be the perfect ‘his and hers’ timepiece. Last year Rolex released the stealth-wealthy…
The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms looks like a lot of other watches out there, and there’s a reason for that. The Fifty Fathoms was first. It was one of the first watches ever designed for diving and, as a result, has become almost the Universal Man of dive watches, where all watches that follow are derivative. Within the Fifty Fathoms family, there are many variations, but one of the most eye-catching of them all has inspired the reissue of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Barakuda Limited Edition. Originally, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms was designed for French navy divers known as Nageurs de combat, but the first Blancpain Barakuda was designed for an armed force over the border in Germany. Known at the time as the Bundesmarine, the German Navy needed a watch that was both easy to read and robust, and looked to Blancpain to produce them a watch that did both. The Barakuda was developed and issued to their own combat swimmers, and is characterised by its unique two-tone hour markers that feature a red strip at their base. In this reissue, the attention to detail is historically faithful, right down to the Automatique lettering, and proportions of the oversized hour…
It’s all very well and good having a mainstay, go-to timepiece that you can rely on for daily duties Monday to Friday, but what happens if you want to change it up for the weekend? For most enthusiasts, the criteria for watches worn on Saturday and Sunday are very different to that of a weekday-warrior: they need to be casual, potentially novel and, if possible, relatively inexpensive. With all these conditions in mind, here are four weekend watches that are chock-full of character and won’t break the bank: Q Timex Reissue Becoming an instant cult classic when it was released earlier this year, the Q Timex Reissue is an excellent example of a deeply characterful yet economical weekend watch. Replete with its ’70s charm, 38mm stainless steel case and conforming woven mesh bracelet and iconic bezel colour scheme, this watch screams to be paired with a white T-shirt and some blue jeans. Though currently sold out, it is expected that the Q Timex Reissue will be available again soon on the Timex website. $179 USD Undone Classic Original Presenting an aesthetic that is perhaps the most archetypal of a great weekender, the Undone Classic Original offers all of…