Hands-On – Urban Jürgensen Adds Handsome Grenage Dials to the Reference 1142
While mass-luxury can sometimes be loud and exuberant, proper high-end, exclusive and hand-made watches don’t need such profusion. As we always tend to demonstrate here, at Monochrome-Watches: “the devil is in the details”. A garde-temps can be apparently simple, almost minimalistic, and however, it can reveal splendid, yet almost invisible, details that make it far more precious than a diamond-paved, full gold watch. As we already reported, Urban Jürgensen timepieces are to be placed in such a category, and the new Reference 1142 with Grenage dials might even push the idea one step further.
It’s a wonder I remember last night with any clarity, given the strength of the cocktails served in honour of – and matched to – the latest member of Seiko’s burgeoning Presage collection: the Cocktail Time. Thankfully, the ability to accurately recall technical details with a reasonable degree of accuracy after three Manhattans is an essential skill in watch journalism, which means that I can not only remember that the drinks in question included the Skydiving (for the SRPB43), Manhattan (a perfect match with the rich brown dial of the SRPB46) and the aggressively hued Blue Moon (an on-point pairing with the SRPB41) but I can also remember details of MC Andrew Daddo’s introductory speech, where he recalled the story of his father’s Seiko, unexpectedly gifted to Daddo snr after he remarked on its beauty during a business meeting in Japan. As you might expect, this story left an impression on Andrew, and when he purchased a watch on holidays, he ended up with a Seiko diver on his wrist. While the Cocktail Time collection and the fine company were enjoyable, the real star of the show was across the road, at Seiko’s new Melbourne boutique, which was officially opened on…
Last night, as Australia slept, Apple unveiled their latest and (they hope) greatest smartphones, a new Apple TV and the Apple Watch Series 3. At the start of the year I had a prolonged tryst with the Series 2 Edition, and the functionality and utility were pretty compelling. The most surprising takeaway for me was how the Apple Watch, rather than adding another screen to my life, went a long way to freeing me from my at times intense love-hate relationship with screens. In particular, I noticed that my iPhone stayed in my pocket more and was no longer a fixture on the bedside table. And while there’s quite the bevy of technical upgrades on the Series 3, the really crucial one is cellular connectivity. This is huge. You are no longer tethered to your phone. I can easily imagine (like this guy), a world where my phone is optional. I’ve currently got 115 apps installed on my phone – I would use 10 per cent of those with any regularity. My first iPhone was mostly for phone calls(!), messaging and Doodle Jump. These day’s it’s a hugely powerful work tool that is, sometimes, too much work. Work that’s always…
