Watch Dandy

Editor’s note: If you want to impress someone with how cool your watch is, it’s hard to beat the Breitling Emergency. We revisit Ben’s story from a few years back to find out why …  There are few watches that live up to their marketing hype, and even fewer that can claim to have genuinely saved lives. Breitling has long been considered the pilot’s watch of choice, but it was the Breitling Emergency that solidified the company’s commitment to aviators and adventurers around the world with one truly unique complication — the personal locator beacon. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, we explore one of the most unique watches ever made. The story began with Ernest Schneider, the man who acquired Breitling in 1979 when it was on the verge of collapse, and kept it afloat during the quartz crisis, thanks to a new generation of iconic Breitling models. An officer with the Swiss Army signal corps during World War II as well as a passionate pilot and engineer, he was involved in discussions at a NATO conference in the mid-1980s about emergency beacons and the high incidence of false activations that cost the relevant authorities significant time and money.…

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Editor’s note: Cam wrote this snappy little opinion piece for us last year, and you know what — we still don’t know how many watches he owns. More than two, and less than 20 … we think.  I think we’ve all found ourselves in a similar situation. You’re at a BBQ, surrounded by friends and family, and everything is going great. The food is good, the drinks are cold, and the stereo is pumping out banger after banger, like it was playing straight from your Spotify playlist. While all around you the conversations are flowing and everyone is happily mingling. Next thing you find yourself chatting to a friend of a friend who you’ve heard of but never actually met. And they’ve just found out that you’re a watch guy. “So, you’re into watches, huh … how many do you have?” And that instant feeling rushes over you. You know the one. It’s kind of like when you’re on a date and they ask that other inevitable “number of” question. And even though you knew it would come eventually, you’re still put on the spot and have to suddenly do the quick math in your head and remember if you’re…

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Two years can be a long time in the life of a product – long enough for it to go from controversial to comfortably accepted, or even loved, as its challenging elements become softened by familiarity. That’s certainly true for two of the watches introduced by Tudor in 2017, which attracted attention and controversy in equal measure. For the Black Bay Heritage S&G, it was a matter of aesthetics: the (then) courageous reintroduction of two-tone – a stylistic blast from the past that was either cool or cringe-making, depending on where you were during its previous heyday, the 1980s. The other was more than skin-deep: the Black Bay Chronograph [read Felix’s review here] is a mash-up of diver’s watch and chronograph – and purists don’t like hybrids (remember the howling that greeted the Porsche Cayenne when it made its debut in 2002?). The rotating bezel of the dive watch became a fixed bezel with a tachymeter scale and the square tip of the snowflake hour hand – so great for underwater visibility – conceals part of the chronograph minutes register between 2 and 4 o’clock (shock!). Skip ahead to 2019 (a world where genre-fluid watches have become almost as familiar…

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Editor’s note: It’s an tricky question, but the new Railmaster makes a compelling case for the ‘yes’ camp …  Yesterday, we showed you the Seamaster Railmaster, a modern incarnation of the classic professional model. But it wasn’t the only Railmaster released last year. No, there’s also this watch, the limited edition 60th anniversary commemorative watch that formed (along with the Speedmaster and the Seamaster) one part of the triumvirate of watches that makes up the 1957 Trilogy series. The version not included in the boxed set is limited to 3557 pieces, and, like the rest of the trilogy, is a near perfect facsimile of the original. In fact, you could argue it’s more than perfect, as it preserves the form and proportions of the original, but adds modern construction and movement quality into the mix. Speaking of form, this Railmaster is superb: 38mm case, with polished and brushed finishes, a 19mm bracelet, a solid link update of the original, and a solid caseback, concealing the thoroughly contemporary Master Chronometer 8806 movement (which is, as you’d expect, significantly more resistant to magnetism than the ’57 version). And then there’s the dial. Pared back to the essentials — printed Omega logo and…

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