Watch Dandy

In 2019, the President of the United States sends foreign policy updates live to your phone. You can order takeaway from a mountaintop, and toilet seats can perform health checkups. At first, this seems to be a net positive for humanity. However, it has made it incredibly difficult to disconnect from the world around us and slow down, and in an age where my boss can remotely access and dictate my schedule from now until eternity, I take comfort in knowing that there is one place left, from which he cannot steal my time. Wristwatches speak to us from what feels like a bygone era, and counsel us with their old-world wisdom. “Slow down,” my watch advises in a Christopher Walken-like drawl. “Walk. Don’t run. It’s your time.” Whether it’s the graceful sweeping seconds of a mechanical, or the hypnotic tick of a quartz, traditional wristwatches have the ability to yank us from the fast-paced world we live in, and force some perspective onto us. Most nights before bed, I take off my watch, place it by my ear on the pillow, and practice breathing. I often wake up with an imprint of a buckle on my left cheek. Obviously,…

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Editor’s note: For Daytona fans, everyone’s all about the Cerachrom bezels these days. And while it’s hard to deny the allure of that super-hard, slick material, I prefer my bezels metal, and preferably precious. Which is why I’m still so into this 2016 release, the Rolex Daytona in white gold with blue dial (ref. 116509). I mean, just check it out …  Two thousand and sixteen will surely go down in the annals of watch-lore as the year of the Daytona. Not only did Rolex finally update their stainless steel icon, but they also unveiled two new precious metal versions. We’ve already looked at the oh-so-shiny green and yellow gold version, and today we hold in our hands the slightly more understated white gold option. The main change here is, of course, the dial. The iridescent blue starburst is called, somewhat unimaginatively, ‘blue’ by Rolex. We were hoping for something more romantic, like ‘ocean depths’ or ‘arctic night’. Regardless of what you call it, the dial is a stunner, and the perfect counterpoint to the high shine of the heavy white gold case, especially with the red highlights on the counters and the ‘Daytona’ text. As far as colour combos go,…

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Marlon Brando’s Rolex GMT-Master ref. 1675, worn by him on the set of Apocalypse Now, is to be auctioned by Phillips Watches Department. The story was broken by the New York Times, with the provenance of the piece being traced from Brando, who in 1995 gave the watch to his adopted daughter Petra Brando Fischer, who in turn gifted the watch to her husband Russel Fischer as a wedding present in 2003. The Rolex GMT-Master in question is a relatively classic ref. 1675, with a few interesting customisations added by Marlon Brando. While shooting Apocalypse Now, a member of the film crew told him not to wear the Rolex as it didn’t fit the character of a US soldier in the Vietnam War living off the land. Rather than getting rid of it completely, Brando popped the bezel off the watch instead, giving it a more beaten look, and he continued to wear it while shooting. He also scratched his own name into the caseback, inscribing “M. Brando” in a style that looks like the watch lived its life in the jungle. The watch is also on an after-market strap, similar to the one in Apocalypse Now, having shed its…

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