FRIDAY WIND DOWN: 16th March, 2017
Schedules are printed. Bags are packed. Passports located. We. Are. Ready. For. Baselworld. Next time we Wind Down, it’ll be over a frosty Feldschlössen (our Basel beer of choice) and there’ll be pretzel crumbs all over the place. What happened Horological marketing departments are a fairly conservative bunch on the whole, because luxury watches are, apparently, a serious business. It seems that Corum are the exception that proves the rule. This video for their 2017 collection is, hands down the best watch ad we’ve seen in a long time. Corum marketing team, we salute you, completely laughable (watch the video) Bubble Earth/Sun/Eye watch, we kind of want you. Last Friday we posted a picture of a Seiko on FB and asked, innocently enough, if there was any love out there for Seiko dive watches? Eighty-one comments, 1200-odd likes and god only knows how many shared photos later, we’re pretty sure that there is. Aside from that usual roster of Turtles and SKX models, we were particularly impressed to see half a dozen or so Blue Lagoons. Clearly the hot Seiko this season. What really mattered Well, TAG Heuer made a convincing argument for the future of the Swiss smart watch, in the shape…
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Meet the latest surprise entrant in the luxury Swiss smart watch sector – the Montblanc Summit. Yes, you read that right, Montblanc. Outgoing CEO Jérôme Lambert has just released details of the Summit, a fully fledged smart watch, with a 46mm case, and (in a first for the connected sector) a curved sapphire touchscreen. The looks of the summit draw strongly from the popular 1858 collection, Lambert says “we wanted to bring a one-of-a-kind vintage design expression into this new product category to inspire the younger generation who appreciates the vintage look”, which is quite a novel approach. Not only is this reflected in the physical case, but also in the traditionally styled watch faces shown on the fully round 1.39″ AMOLED display. The Montblanc Summit runs Android Wear 2 off a Snapdragon Chipset, is water resistant to the IP68 standard, and features heart rate monitor, compass and gyroscope (no mention of GPS) and 4GB of internal storage. Compatible with iOS and Android, it comes pre-loaded with a bunch of apps including Runtastic, Google Assistant, Uber and a voice activated translator. Montblanc’s Summit will be available in a wide range of case styles and strap combinations – over…
Piaget’s pioneering Altiplano has been impressing since 1957, and given that watch brands love nothing more than an anniversary, we were expecting plenty of that barely-there silhouette in the collection at SIHH. And that’s fair enough, when you consider that, 60 years on, mechanical watches still don’t come any slimmer than the Altiplano. Even so, we weren’t quite prepared for just how stunning the new special editions are, with colourful, shimmering dials that really blew us away. Oh, and Piaget also snuck in a stealthy new black Polo S as well. The only question remaining is, would I rock this diamond-encrusted tourbillon? 
BASEL BUILDUP: Seiko’s impact at Baselworld last year was measurable on the Richter scale. If it wasn’t the aftershocks of the Seiko Presage Chronograph 60th Anniversary Limited Edition it was watches like the Grand Seiko Spring Drive SBGD001. Hard model name to remember. Easy watch to be wooed by. The dial doesn’t quite sparkle in these pictures like it does in real life, so if you ever get the chance to see one, do yourself a favour. The first thing you notice about this Grand Seiko when you look at it is the dial. It’s a fresh as virgin snow on a crisp winter’s morning – an icy, sparkling white. Seiko call it ‘diamond dust’ and it’s easy to see why. What you notice next, if you’re lucky enough to have the opportunity to hold this watch in your hands is the weight. It’s heavy, real heavy. And that can only mean one thing – platinum. The case isn’t just solid, it’s big too. At 43mm it measures in larger than most Grand Seiko’s, thanks to the 37mm wide movement. Add this uncharacteristically big case to Seiko’s impeccable polishing and the traditional styling, and what might look inconspicuous in press pictures, is actually a shimmering…