Value Proposition – The anOrdain Model 1 – With Enamel Dial Hand-Made in Glasgow, Scotland
There are a lot of new watch brands coming to market these days. And I mean A LOT. Some go down the popular Kickstarter route, whilst others – like the brand we’re looking at today – prefer to do things the old-fashioned way. The one thing they all share in common is a desire to differentiate themselves from each other and from other established players. It’s a tall order in what is a very crowded market, and many never quite get there. Newcomer, AnOrdain, from Glasgow, has adopted a decidedly simple approach to standing out from the crowd and so far, it seems to be working. Today, we’re getting hands-on with their first watch, the Model 1, which features a stunning enamel dial made in-house.
Editor’s note: An affordable Swiss-made tourbillon. Words like that were once considered something of an oxymoron. That all changed, however, when in 2016, TAG Heuer’s Carrera Heuer-02T came along, causing something of a stir amongst the watchmaking elite. Well, with this year’s release of the chronometer grade TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon Tête de Vipère, those shock waves are once again being felt. And we thought we’d revisit this interview with Director of the Research Institute for the Watch Division at LVMH, Mr Guy Sémon. With Felix asking the big questions, and seeking out just what it is that has the industry talking. One of the hottest topics at this year’s Baselworld fair was TAG Heuer’s ’20k tourbillon’. And that nickname is even more impressive when you translate it into US dollars, which gets it much closer to 15k. It represents the brand’s comparatively accessible take on that most hallowed (and most expensive) of complications. TAG Heuer’s aggressively priced Carrera Heuer-02T — which retails in Australia for $20,450 — stirred equal measures of surprise and scepticism. Patek Philippe President Thierry Stern held nothing back when he said that such a low-priced tourbillon was “nearly a joke”, commenting: “If [TAG Heuer are] willing to try to kill the quality…
Nothing hints at the story of a watch more than its imperfections. A thick scratch across the crystal. Could that have been a motorbike accident? A near miss with a switchblade? A ding in the otherwise smooth shoulder of the lugs. Something mundane like an errant car door, or seatbelt buckle on a plane? A particular burnishing to a deployant, suggesting an activity performed daily by the wearer, such as aluminium MacBook Pro scratches in the case of all my watches. No watch imperfections have moved me quite like the ones on this watch that Omega Museum Director Mr Petros Protopapas entrusted to my gloved hand in this extraordinary experience we captured on film. In it, I ask to do exactly that. It’s rather greedy to listen back to. What watch in the museum would I like to see? “Not a watch that was near the moon, or that orbited the moon … one that walked ON the moon.” The watch he handed me? A NASA-issued Omega Speedmaster ref. ST105.003 that belonged to Eugene ‘Gene’ Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon as the Commander of Apollo 17 in December 1972. I have stolen enough thunder here. I hope you…
It would be easy to dismiss the Luminor Due — Panerai’s latest fully fledged line — as a collection oriented towards women. After all, it’s the collection that houses 38 and 42mm watches. But the fact that I am on record as being more than a little partial to the 42mm model aside, there are the larger members of the Due family, PAMs 943 and 944 respectively. Both are 45mm steel cases, which sees them aimed firmly at the fellas. If the larger size wasn’t enough of a giveaway, the more subdued colour palette should cinch it. Gone are the playful blues and fashion-forward strap options, in favour of stunning, shimmering anthracite. And really, this is a watch where the dial shines over the details. Don’t get me wrong, the details are good — classic Panerai design codes rendered in rich ecru lume, with a smidgen of text and a date window thrown in for good measure — but they don’t compete with the richness of the dial texture. This is one of the dressiest Panerais I’ve had the pleasure of wearing, and that’s absolutely OK. This is a Luminor Due, after all. And while the dive watch heritage is there,…
