Collector's Guide - Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore 25721ST
The Royal Oak Offshore may not be on everybody’s wishlist this Christmas, but quite a few gentlemen would be okay with getting a first edition of “The Beast” to crown their collections. The hype might revolve around the Royal Oak designed by Gerald Genta in 1972, but the Offshore series is no less critical to Audemars Piguet and its current success. The Offshore has a history and meaning; it is legendary and turns 30 next year. As our guest, we had to have it here in the Collector’s Corner.Emmanuel Gueit, designer of the Royal Oak Offshore in 1993Background – From RO to ROOThis year Audemars Piguet celebrates 50 years of the Royal Oak, which in 1972 was nothing short of an impressive innovation in design, and more. Some say the watch, designed by Gerald Genta (whose epic portfolio of iconic designs was recently sold at auction and reminded us once again of the true scope of Genta’s talent and influence on the industry), saved Audemars Piguet from the

Time flows by. With the HYT H1 - Monochrome Watches
Generally, fluids and watches don't mix that well. Most watch manufacturers go to great lengths to keep out stuff like water, resulting in some pretty impressive diver watches over the years.The idea of using a liquid inside a watch isn't new. Diver watches often use silicon oil to cope with the pressures under extreme conditions. Besides that, we've seen the Concord C1 Quantum Gravity which uses a fluid cell as a power reserve indicator. HYT however, took it to the next level, incorporating fluids into telling time! Ad - Scroll to continue with article The HYT brand is headed by Vincent Perriard, who in recent years was involved with aforementioned Concord, Hamilton, Technomarine and Audemars Piguet to name a few. Vincent and his crack team of hydromechanical horologists have come up with an extraordinary timepiece, dubbed the H1. The H1 was first shown to the

Ressence Type 2 e-Crown Concept - The First Self-Setting Mechanical Watch
Here, at MONOCHROME, we’re not huge fans of the smart-watches, to say the least. We cherish and celebrate watches in their purest (probably old-school) form: ME-CHA-NI-CAL! We love gears, pinions, hand-decoration, complications but also all the devoted people that work behind the scenes. Smart-watch, as tech objects, never ticked the boxes. However, we have to?keep up with the times and admit that in some cases, technology can be brilliant (we are, after all, a web medium). Today, Ressence launches the?Type 2 e-Crown Concept and they might have found the recipe to reconcile us with electronics…The crown, a mechanism to wind and to adjust watches, was invented by Adrien Philippe in 1842… and has been an unchallenged standard since!The crown certainly is one of the most important parts of a watch for the simple reason that it is the one with which we have most interactions. We use it, without thinking about it, to wind the movement or to adjust the time. It has become s

IWC Pilot's Watch Chronograph TOP GUN Edition SFTI IW389104
Today, IWC Schaffhausen releases its Pilot's Watch Chronograph TOP GUN Edition SFTI. The watch – an extension to the company's Pilot's Chronograph TOP GUN model – is also the civilian version of a timepiece created in honour of the US Naval Aviation Community back in 2018. The Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor watch, which was exclusive to the wrists of TOPGUN graduates, was produced as a collaborative effort between the Swiss watch manufacturer and Naval Air Station Lemoore-based instructors in California. It equipped graduates of the Navy Fighter Weapons School with a reliable tool for soaring through the skies in supersonic jets whilst subject to extreme G-forces. Limited to 1,500 pieces worldwide, the new Pilot's Watch Chronograph TOP GUN Edition SFTI faithfully follows many design codes of the TOP GUN series. The robust instrument is geared towards flying officers responsible for handling tortuous manoeuvres whilst seated at the cockpit of aircraft like the F/A-18 Supe

First Look: The Louis Moinet Speed of Sound with Valjoux 88
With Jean-Marie Schaller at the helm, Louis Moinet navigates the seas of haute horlogerie with a distinctive style marked by its impressively staged mechanical movements, exotic materials and flamboyant styling. Louis Moinet's latest port of call will appeal to fans of the legendary Valjoux 88 calibre, brought back to life onboard the Speed of Sound. As the brand whose founding father invented one of the very first chronographs in 1815 – the Compteur de Tierces – it is a fitting way to celebrate its 20th anniversary.The Louis Moinet Speed of Sound is a chronograph with moon phases and a telemeter scale designed to measure the distance from an event that emits light and sound powered by a modified and embellished Valjoux calibre 88. Not the most common kind of scale found on chronographs, the telemeter scale was a vital instrument for yesteryear soldiers to calculate the firing range in battle; today, telemeters can be used to calculate the distance of a storm based on the t