Hands-on Frederique Constant Manufacture Classics Moonphase, a qualitative but affordable dress watch (live photos & price) - Monochrome Watches
A few months ago, we introduced to you the?Frederique Constant Manufacture Classics Moonphase. Usually, this brand isn’t matching with our “standards” (because, you know us, we love high-end watches). We’ve nothing against the brand but our editorial choice is to have a focus on more complex and lavishly finished timepieces. However, with this one, the offer was?a bit different: a dress watch, with a very nice design, a moon-phase and a date, powered by an in-house movement (and that changed it all…). Our first impressions were highly positive and thus, we wanted to feel the?Frederique Constant Manufacture Classics Moonphase in the flesh, just to be sure…What’s the deal with this?Frederique Constant Manufacture Classics Moonphase, on paper? A 40.5mm dress watch, with a refined dial, a moon-phase indication, a date, beautifully finished hands and dial, a case with officer caseback, which hides a movement produced in-house (which didn’t?loo

Young Talent Antonin Falk Shows Us His Montre decole, With A Very Special Bumper Automatic Mechanism - Monochrome Watches
Here, at MONOCHROME, we are always pleased to present young watchmakers and their work, not only because they do represent the future of the independent watchmaking scene, but also because what these young talents can achieve is often highly surprising. Today we are taking a look at the Montre d'ecole of Antonin Falk. If you are a regular reader of our magazine, you might remember his jumping hour & retrograde minute watch. Now in his early twenties, Falk just completed a montre d'ecole, a watch he crafted to graduate from his watchmaking school, the Lycee Edgar Faure in Morteau, France. And this watch, in addition to featuring a tourbillon, comes equipped with a very special self-winding mechanism.The briefing for the watch Antonin Falk and his fellow students had to create and craft for their graduation work this year was pretty simple and straightforward. They had to develop and craft, entirely by themselves, an automatic watch using as a base a hand-wound movement, in this inst

Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Titanium 43mm 2021 - Review, Price
The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms is, without a doubt, one of the most emblematic dive watches. You hardly can find a dive watch with more historical background, the model being one of the earliest watches of its kind and one that has helped define the very concept of the dive watch. But behind the name Fifty Fathoms hides two sub-collections, and that since the early days of this model. First is the classic watch, with its more robust case and often larger diameter. Then is the Bathyscaphe, a more focused, slightly simplified watch that can be traced back to 1956. And while the modern version of this watch is today a very well-established model, the brand has decided to bring an update, with the new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe 43mm Titanium, which we’ve presented first here and, as promised, we now have them live.?Quick backgroundThe story of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms starts in 1953, making it one of the very first dive watches ever manufactured and commercialized – it

Video - Comeback of HYT with Davide Cerrato and the New Hastroid
HYT Watches is a brand like no other on the independent watch scene. Launched in 2012, HYT created a buzz with their unique meca-fluidic technology, displaying time with fluids. During the pandemic in 2020, the brand announced it was going out of business Still, just a few months later, HYT is back with a new CEO and Creative Director at his helm, Davide Cerrato. A veteran of the watch industry, Cerrato made a name for himself with brands such as Panerai, Tudor or Montblanc. The launch of this first creation, the Hastroid, was the perfect opportunity to meet him. In the in-depth video on top of this article, we talk with Davide Cerrato about the re-launch of the brand and the whole new HYT Hastroid watch.?Davide Cerrato, newly-appointed CEO of HYT WatchesBehind HYT is a concept, a vision of displaying time in an unprecedented and clearly unnatural manner. Instead of using traditional hands revolving around a dial, HYT Watches, created in 2012, uses an entirely novel display based on fl

Pre-Roger Dubuis Excalibur Automatic Skeleton Carbon (specs & price) - Monochrome Watches
For the?SIHH 2016,?Roger Dubuis?will be focused on?women’s with, with most novelties?adorned with floral motifs and gems. Just in case men were to feel just a bit neglected, Roger Dubuis has something to provide us with, as usual for the brand, a lot of skeletonization work and a bold design. Based on their entry level skeleton watch introduced in 2015, the?Roger Dubuis Excalibur Automatic Skeleton, the brands adds some darkness, some robustness and some lightness to the concept with a molded?carbon case. Let’s have a look at one of the watches to be introduced at the SIHH 2016, the?Roger Dubuis Excalibur Automatic Skeleton Carbon.Skeleton watches are?the main specialty of the Manufacture Roger Dubuis – together with the fact that every single watch produced is adorned with the Poin?on de Geneve. Until 2015, most skeletonized Roger Dubuis watches were equipped with a tourbillon – or even with two tourbillons. Meaning that enjoying these extra-thin, widely opened