When it comes to buy a serious dress watch, what will be your expectations? Whatever the money?you’re ready to spend into this so-desired watch, you’ll probably want it to look classy, to have an interesting movement, to be featured with some complications and to be naturally elegant. Having a manufacture movement would of course be a w..................
2015-09-28 More
The Porsche Design Studio in Zell-am-See, Austria, is identified with clear, timeless, and unmistakable design that is the trademark of all Porsche Design Group products. One of the most important and influential series of products born there are the timepieces. Traditionally, creations that originated from this studio encompassed a clear vision of..................
2015-09-25 More
Montblanc had been quite active these past years, surprising watch-lovers with complicated timepieces priced to?highly competitive price levels. It had been the case first with a perpetual calendar costing less than 10.000 Euros but also with all sorts of complications, like a complete calendar, an annual calendar or a world-timer, making these int..................
2015-09-25 More
It is with great pleasure we welcome Koen?as a contributor?to the Monochrome-Watches team he is extremely active on the IWC forum and a truly passionate watch geek. When we first sat down on the Collector Series with Koen,?we discussed his stunning Vintage IWC Portofino. On this occasion, in a rather overcast London (no surprise there), his second ..................
2015-09-24 More
It’s tough to think of a collector who?hasn’t?dreamt of ultra-high-end watches such as F.P. Journe, Kari Voutilainen, Laurent Ferrier or Philippe Dufour? These dream-watches are however, for almost all of us, unreachable objects, with prices starting at 50k (and with no limits). Miguel, the founder of Ophion?Watches, also harbors ambiti..................
2015-09-23 More
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of sitting down with?distinguished?collector and?contributor to the Deployant Blog,?Charles Sutanto.?As an engineer, Charles tells me it was really a?fascination?with mechanics that drew him to watches. ?His horological journey started approximately 15 years ago with the purchase of Jaeger LeCoultre Master?Memov..................
2015-09-22 More
How would you define a classical, dress watch? Sit down for a minute and ask the question to yourself and to people next to you… The definition will certainly evolve?around a rather small, elegantly shaped, most probably slim and in gold watch. Then, what complication do you want to see on the dial? A chronograph or a rotating bezel? Certainl..................
2015-09-21 More
Vacheron Constantin celebrates their 260th anniversary and for this occasion, they created the most complicated watch in the world (say that out loud like Jeremy Clarkson would do). With no less than 57 complications (that’s no typo, it is indeed fifty-seven!) it outpaces?crushes the former most complicated watch, Patek Philippe’s Calib..................
2015-09-17 More
I’ve noticed, its not necessarily the ‘big names’ that get a collector’s juices flowing. It often happens to be the more unusual, niche creations. I guess it come down to the desire to own a unique piece of art. This is certainly the case with our Editor in Chief Frank Geelen. Last time we sat down to discuss his collection ..................
2015-09-17 More
Ulysse Nardin, ostensibly a name synonymous with sailing, creates a limited edition Marine Diver to commemorate its partnership with Artemis racing. The previous America's Cup race had the growing pains of transitioning from the diminutive-by-comparison AC45 yachts to the staggering AC72 yachts (we featured the changes with Corum). The America's Cu..................
2015-09-16 More
The Collector Series moves to Amsterdam this week and?interviews?Dale Vito. Dale currently work’s as eCommerce manager at Amsterdam-based?Ace Jewelers. He has been collecting for 10 years and founded Dezinvanluxe.nl?in 2005, which at its height was the biggest watch board in the Netherlands. He sold it a few years later and he tells me that t..................
2015-09-15 More
Omega has quite a lot of vintage-inspired watches in their collection, like for instance the Omega Seamaster 300 Master Co-Axial or the Omega Speedmaster?57 Co-Axial revisited with Broad Arrow Hands (a recall of the very first Speedmaster CK2915). In 2012, they also introduced a quite?interesting edition of the Speedy that was a tribute to astronau..................
2015-09-14 More
For once, allow me to quote a press release (something that we usually never do, considering the insane amount of self-love brands can and usually put in their press releases). However, this one was quite appropriate: “Like a good movie, this watch doesn't have to rely on special effects“. Indeed, the?IWC Portugieser Hand-Wound Eight Da..................
2015-09-11 More
When you think “Nomos Glashutte“, what you probably have in your mind are rather small, clean watches inspired by Bauhaus (a German school of art, mixing modernism and simplicity) like the Nomos Ahoi?and the Nomos Tangente. Recently, the brand gained even more affection from us with the introduction of both complicated watches (see the ..................
2015-09-10 More
As watchmaking goes, there are only a select group of watches that fall into the Iconic' category. The omega Speedmaster is certainly one of them. The Speedmaster’s history goes back to 1957 with the reference CK 2915 (known as the “Broad Arrow”). It was designed by a Swiss gentleman by the name of Claude Baillod. The watch featur..................
2015-09-10 More
The?A. Lange & Sohne 1815 Chronograph is the entry-level chronograph of the Saxonian Manufacture… and what an entry-level watch! This visually simple timepiece shares its base movement (just a tiny bit modified to remove the Date and the power reserve) with the iconic Dufour-Graph, the A. Lange & Sohne Datograph?– quite a pedigr..................
2015-09-08 More
Discussing watches with collectors never fails to amaze and inspire me. I tend to find it is the stories behind the watches themselves that evokes the emotion within a collector. As the great marketing guru Simon Sinek always says, it is not the what' but the why' which counts. I am also of the belief watch collecting should be something that has l..................
2015-09-08 More
If there’s a watch in this crowded industry that best represents aviation and jet fighters, it is?probably the IWC Big Pilot – so to say, a pure icon. Alongside the classical edition with a stainless steel case and a black dial, IWC also plays a lot with this timepiece to create limited editions but still keeping true to the classic ico..................
2015-09-04 More
On this leg of the Collector’s Series, we find ourselves in Poland. We sit down with one of the country’s foremost watch experts, Lukasz Doskocz (from chronos24.pl), to find out why he fell for an uber cool Tudor. Lukasz describes himself as a yet-to-be developed' collector with interests in unusual, avant-garde creations as well as cla..................
2015-09-03 More
Recently, IWC introduced a unique edition of the Portofino launched at the occasion of the?Tribeca Film Festival 2015, a watch that later had been auctioned by Christie’s. Surprisingly, this unique timepiece came with a brand new movement,?never seen before in?the rest of the Portofino collection: a hand-wound mono-pusher chronograph. However..................
2015-09-03 More
IWC is used to create, amongst their various limited editions, watches related to Film Festivals. It was the case recently with a unique Portofino Hand-Wound Monopusher Chronograph dedicated to the?Tribeca Film Festival 2015. The same kind?of partnership is now applied to the?BFI London Film Festival. And as?we’re not talking about just putti..................
2015-09-02 More
In watches, Rado made Ceramic useful, Chanel made Ceramic fashionable, and now Tag Heuer employs Ceramic in its AQUARACER 300M to make the material indomitable. Given the active lifestyle of many watch owners, a dive watch might hit, bang, scrape, bump or slam against almost anything. A ceramic bezel insures a long-lasting pristine appearance, than..................
2015-09-02 More
Until now, the SIHH, the watch fair held in January, was known to be a very luxurious exhibition that almost exclusively focuses on the Richemont Group brands. The FHH (Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie), host of the SIHH, just decided to change the format, first by bringing a new architectural concept, but mainly by adding to the list of the exhibi..................
2015-09-01 More
It is fair to say that this Collector's Series entry falls firmly in the grail watch category Mark Sinclair is a true Danish Gentleman. He is an avid watch collector, fundraiser and highly involved and respected law student (master program), soon to be a Lawyer. In his limited spare time, Mark?hosts watch events in Copenhagen as well as teaching an..................
2015-09-01 More
We’ve been presenting you almost?all the watches that will be auctioned the?7 November 2015 in Geneva by Phillips for Only Watch 2015. We showed you magnificent and unique watches like the Patek Philippe?ref. 5016A-010, the Laurent Ferrier Galet Square with Sector dial or the?FP Journe Tourbillon Souverain Bleu in tantalum. However, there is ..................
2015-08-31 More
Suppose you’re looking for a dress watch. Not just a dress watch but it has to be a pure, thoroughbred dress watch and it has to be among the best that money can buy. So you focus your (online) search queries on Haute Horlogerie, or high-end watches, and dress watch and hope you will find what you’re looking for. Unfortunately Google se..................
2015-08-31 More
This year, 2015, is the year that the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam pays tribute to the 125th anniversary of the famous Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. And Jaeger-LeCoultre joins them for this memorable event by releasing?a limited edition Reversoa Eclipse that features Van Gogh’s infamous Sunflowers painting. Since the Reversoa Eclipse has th..................
2015-08-28 More
It was an immense pleasure to sit down with our very own associate editor, Brice Goulard, and hear where his passion for watches comes from. Brice is the only Frenchman in the Monochrome lineup, so me being from the UK, we try to avoid talking about the Football or le Rugby. Luckily we have no problems talking watches, so we caught up with Brice in..................
2015-08-27 More
If you spend half as much time as I do on Instagram scrolling through wrist shots you will be familiar with our next guest on the Collector Series. He goes by the name @whatmakesmetick. What attracted me to his work was the sheer volume and variety of watches on show. With a clear respect for bespoke gentlemen’s footwear and a wealth of indep..................
2015-08-25 More
Erotic watches… A long standing tradition in watchmaking. We have showed you a few, like for instance this one. Usually, this kind of timepieces tends to show automatons depicting an erotic scene (like a couple in action…). Richard Mille is now coming with his own vision of such a watch, however with the typical modern, technical and ex..................
2015-08-24 More
When you think about the Montblanc Rieussec Monopusher Chronograph, you can easily call it the most Montblanc of the Montblanc watches. The rest of the collection may have a lot of horological interest (see the recently revealed?Heritage Spirit Orbis Terrarum?or the splendid?Meisterstuck Heritage Pulsograph with Minerva Monopusher Chronograph ̵..................
2015-08-21 More
It's the one you have all been waiting for! It's time to sit down with our very own Executive Editor and Monochrome-Watches' founder, Frank Geelen. I love nothing more than talking watches with enthusiasts but this one was extra special. To give you a bit of background (in case you were unaware): in 2006, Frank started Monochrome-Watches as a blog...................
2015-08-20 More
This week the Collector series moves to the Big Apple! William S. Lerner is an independent inventor (14 issued US Patents, with a primary focus on light based research, and burn prevention), an owner of Baz Persaud, Inc. Baz Persaud is a New York based?jewelry?company, that specializes in custom and couture cufflinks, and magnificent jewellery. The..................
2015-08-18 More
Let’s get straight down to it. This is probably one of the best looking dress-chronographs seen recently. Although we tend to keep objectivity at?the center of our articles, Vacheron’s latest?offer just looks superb. Based on a vintage watch from 1955 (that will be explained later), this new timepiece has it all: the right diameter, the..................
2015-08-18 More
One of the many long-standing traditions in the watch industry is an Erotic scene. Ulysse Nardin are?known for continuing this tradition with several references in their collection depicting classy but sexy scenes. There are also other features that Ulysse Nardin is known for, like Jaquemarts (some sort of automatons that can also be found in the u..................
2015-08-17 More
Recently, we’ve seen the evolution of the Lange 1, a watch so iconic that A. Lange & Sohne decided to update only its movement and not to touch its visual aspects (well, except?2 very little details that we’re not even going to mention now). With the Saxonia, the entry-level-understated-classical-dress-but-oh-so-nice collection of t..................
2015-08-14 More
We've knew about it for a while. We showed it to you a few months ago when we spotted Daniel Craig wearing an Omega Seamaster 300 with a NATO strap – and then the official poster for?the latest 007 James Bond movie, Spectre, definitely gave us the answer. Now it is official and here is the?Omega Seamaster 300 SPECTRE Limited Edition that Dani..................
2015-08-14 More
In our second instalment of the Collector Series we sit down with one of the coolest guys in watches, Kristian Haagen. He’s a watch enthusiast (watchgeek), collector, author, lecturer and advisor to auctioneers (it must be tough when people ask what he does for a living at dinner parties!). However you may know him best for his mind-blowing p..................
2015-08-11 More
Roger Dubuis is quite a unique manufacture, with a specific approach of watchmaking and a production solely?focused on ultra-hihg-end movements, on skeletonization and (unique fact in the industry) with collections entirely adorned with the Hallmark of Geneva (Poin?on de Geneve). We’ve seen totally crazy pieces, like for example the?Pulsion S..................
2015-08-10 More
Recently, we’ve been impressed by Vacheron-Constantin. Not that the Geneva-based manufacture is not used to create interesting watches (really, we’re far from that), but the latest collection that they showed during SIHH 2015 was both visually and technically stunning. We first felt that only by only seeing the press photos of the entir..................
2015-08-07 More