Value Proposition – Gaia & Co. Launches its Neo-Vintage Primavera Collection on Kickstarter
Gaia & Co., a new microbrand building watches in Besançon, France, is launching its Primavera collection on Kickstarter. This first annual series, which will be produced in three colours, is limited to 900 pieces and will be replaced next year with a new collection. The annual cycle is designed to maintain an exclusivity with the brand, although it likely helps control costs and inventory as well. The watches will have Japanese automatics and are what the company calls neo-vintage, providing the “missing link between classic and modern watches.” The vintage-inspired trend has been around for quite a while, so Gaia & Co. has a crowded field to contend with.
Call me a romantic, but the moon phase complication is amongst my favourites. Paradoxically, it’s also amongst the least functional — tracking the waxing and waning of our most significant satellite isn’t something that’s high on my list of life priorities. And when the topic does come up, I can, you know, look at the sky. But, really, that’s not the point of a moon phase. It’s a complication of wonder, one that speaks — on a scale far broader than hours or minutes — to the passing of time. It also reminds you that time isn’t an abstract concept, it’s linked to astronomical events — the earth, sun and moon etc. Raymond Weil has done well to capture this overall sense of stargazing whimsy in their Maestro Moon Phase. I mean, sure, the perfectly sized 39.5mm steel case is plain and simple, living up to the classic principles of the Maestro family. The dial, though, is where it really comes alive. Blue tones are the order of the day, but the effect on the wrist is far from flat or monochromatic, thanks to the various surface treatments: wavy radial guilloché in the centre, concentric rings for the hour track,…
As we embark on the 50th anniversary edition of the US Open, all eyes are on the new official timepiece of the tennis tournament, Rolex. Rolex is replacing Citizen, which had been a sponsor of the US Open for more than two decades. Rolex is already the official timekeeper of the Australian Open and has an impressive roster of tennis players among its ambassadors: Roger Federer, Juan Martín del Potro, Angelique Kerber and Sloane Stephens, to name a few. Rolex chose the Datejust 41 on a jubilee bracelet for the feature timepiece on its US Open webpage. The white gold watch has a dark rhodium dial and fluted bezel. Should a Rolex ambassador raise the Tiffany & Co. hardware in Arthur Ashe Stadium, he or she might be sporting that Datejust. (We all remember Roger Federer’s striking blue-dial Sky-Dweller when he accepted the trophy at this year’s Australian Open.) In the next two weeks, we will see close to AU$3 million in watches at the tournament, and Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic are all scheduled to play. I expect Rafael Nadal — who won the US Open last year — to wear his limited edition Richard Mille Tourbillon watch,…
The story in a second: Same great watch, brand new dial. The centrepiece of Seiko’s 2018 Prospex collection is, without doubt, the brand new and very blue ‘Save The Ocean’ series, offered in Turtle, Samurai and solar variants. It follows on from the recent Black Series and Blue Lagoon. But while last year’s limited edition was purely a cosmetic update, the Save The Ocean release has an element of social responsibility. Seiko has teamed up with Fabien Cousteau (grandson of Jacques-Yves Cousteau), who is himself a marine conservationist, to raise funds and awareness for Cousteau’s Ocean Learning Centre. Part of this awareness-raising involves prominent displays of what healthy and not-so-healthy marine environments look like in several Australian cities. So, not only do these watches look the part, they also do their part. The case First up, aside from the dial and bezel, this watch is pretty much identical to its regular release brethren. So, you’re getting the same angular, slightly blocky steel case, with solid proportions of 43.8mm across and 12.82mm tall — with a neatly knurled crown at three and fairly pointy guards. One point of difference between this and the regular Samurai models is that the grippy bezel…
In case you’ve missed the news, a new rom-com, Crazy Rich Asians, is coming to a screen near you. The film adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s bestselling book series has received huge praise since its premiere, notably for the way it’s challenging stereotypes of how Asians are represented in major Hollywood films. The film concentrates on a young Asian-American couple making the journey back to Singapore to meet the family. Of course, the plot twists when the woman travelling to meet her boyfriend’s family finds out they are one of the wealthiest in Singapore. Without spoiling anything, the film naturally explores how Singapore’s 0.01% spend their wealth, featuring a dazzling assemblage of luxury homes, cars — and watches. Filmmaking aside, Crazy Rich Asians caught our attention for another reason: its props, or more specifically, a very specific prop. Before we dive into the detail, it’s important to note that Kwan had a very deliberate hand in choosing the props for the film. We recently got word that Kwan insisted on using a specific Rolex ‘Paul Newman Daytona’ (reference 6263) for a particular scene in the film. Multiple sources have since established just how important the use of this specific watch was to Kwan,…
Editor’s note: From a sports watch to a dress watch. The evolution of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso has seen it transform like night and day. And the icon that is now more associated with suits and ties, rather than mallets and sticks, is made even grander here in a pink gold case and duelling dials of wondrous textures. Believe it or not, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso is one of the original sports watches. The oft-quoted origin story about this iconic rectangle is that it was the dusty polo fields of colonial India that gave birth to the reversible watch, which could be easily flipped to protect the delicate dial during the rough and tumble of the chukka. That was way back in 1931, and in the subsequent decades the perceptions of the Reverso have, much like its ingenious case, done a complete about-face. In 2017 the Reverso stands out as one of the default black-tie watches. Nowhere is that more apparent than with this Tribute Duoface, which looks absolutely stunning in pink gold. The case size is reasonable – but by no means overwhelming – at 25.5mm wide by 42.9mm high. The one thing that shines brighter than the gold on this watch…