Watch Dandy

With a great tagline comes great responsibility, and last night Tudor lived up to theirs by daring to launch their 2017 collection in the midst of Australia’s most controversial art festival, Dark Mofo, in Hobart. Talk about being #borntodare – this was a night with far fewer boundaries than usual for a luxury watch event. The guests tumbled from a fine dining experience at Franklin restaurant down a rabbit hole of scenes and settings that were, in as few words as possible, a David Lynch movie come to life. Whole buildings were converted into experiential art spaces that might include nude yoga, a blasting punk gig by Pussy Riot, a ‘real’ tennis exhibition match in an indoor court built in the mid-19th century, and a rave where people were encouraged to lie on a floor and have pebbles poured over them. 1. There was no real agenda or schedule Can you imagine? A Swiss watch event with no meticulous itinerary? Crazy. Town. This was not a tightly choreographed whistlestop tour of weirdness – guests were encouraged to disappear and do things by themselves. It was not a breath of fresh air as much as a gale force wind that left everyone…

The post EVENT: 5 ways Tudor’s collection launch at Dark Mofo was actually daring appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.

The concept of GTGs, or G2Gs, or get togethers in plain english, is a staple of the Instagram handled, Facebook-inhabiting individuals known collectively as ‘the watch fam’. For all that the growth of watch collecting and connoisseurship has been driven by digital platforms, there’s nothing quite like meeting like-minded people in person, calling them by their Instagram name and fondling the watch on their wrist. Typically GTGs are semi-regular affairs, based around fora, Facebook groups or, more recently, organisations like RedBar (started by this guy). Well, the GTG that took place in The Hour Glass’ freshly opened Sydney boutique will go down in the annals of watchnerd lore. I’m confident saying that never before has such a significant collection of independent watches been shown in Australia, courtesy of Group Managing Director Michael Tay’s personal collection. George Daniels. Roger Smith. Philippe Dufour. F.P. Journe. Richard Mille. Vianney Halter – and that’s not even half of it. Tay brought the heat in a big way. And while the rest of the attendees were queuing for an up close and personal inspection of some of watchmaking’s holiest of grails, I borrowed five minutes of Michael’s time to find out about his plans for Australia,…

The post EVENT: Epic watches and why the Australian market matters — the Sydney Hour Glass GTG with Michael Tay appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.