Watch Dandy

Do we ever see adverts calling an Audi A3 a “ladies’ car”, a Porsche 911 or Toyota LandCruiser a “men’s car”? Nope. So, when even the notoriously non-PC motor industry refrains from classifying cars in mutually exclusive gender terms, why does the watch industry persist in doing so? Now, men and women are clearly different. But in terms of style, taste and habits, the traits of masculinity and femininity exist on a spectrum; there’s no fixed divide. So, in an age when nobody bats an eyelid at men wearing pink or women wearing trousers – well, apart from a handful of airline CEOs who still insist that the “hostesses” wear skirts – the rigid classification of watches as men’s and women’s (or the old-fashioned and rather patronising “ladies”) is an anachronism. Of course, at the poles of this spectrum, there are watches that exude traditional, typecast masculinity (huge, aggressively butch tool watches) and femininity (delicate, gem-set dress watches), and there’s no reason for the best examples of each genre to compromise. However, in the vast middle between these extremes, there’s no need for gender labels. Why shouldn’t a man wear a modestly sized or gem-set watch? (Let’s remember that until…

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Yesterday, Dwayne Johnson touched down in Las Vegas to showcase his new buddy action flick Hobbs & Shaw at CinemaCon, an industry event. But while I’m sure there were explosions aplenty, what really grabbed our attention was something else entirely. What The Rock was wearing. That Ferragamo knit with a palm print is in-credible.  Also, the dude is wearing the brand new IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Spitfire — which is, let’s be clear, a 46.2mm watch that certainly earns the ‘Big’ moniker — like it’s a dainty 36mm. Nuts.  This particular Big Pilot was released at SIHH earlier this year, and is one of the crown (complicated) jewels in the revamped Spitfire collection — with a bronze case, green dial and a lot of complication.  It’s limited to 250 pieces and has an indicative Australian RRP of $42,600

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Editor’s note: When it was first released, waaaaay back in 2015, the North Flag was a big deal. So much so that the main question in our review was whether or not Tudor was planning to move beyond their heritage core. Well, history has answered that question (heritage is here to stay), but that doesn’t mean that the North Flag, with its genuinely interesting design, isn’t a worthy watch … The story in a second In the days before Baselworld 2015 the speculation surrounding the next big Tudor release was high. Even so, no one saw the North Flag coming. The big question Can Tudor move beyond the Heritage collection? Ever since Tudor’s spectacular rebirth a few years ago they have been looking to the past. Their greatest hit – the almighty Black Bay — is a watch that epitomises the heritage trend that has swept across Switzerland and the rest of the world. But the heritage trend can’t last forever, so Tudor is looking to the future. And the watch at the vanguard of this next generation is the North Flag. It’s a completely new design, with a precise, technical and almost aggressive case design that looks nothing like…

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