Alternatives to Off-the-Shelf Swiss ETA and Sellita Movements, with Seagull, Seiko and Miyota - Monochrome Watches
When talking about contemporary watches, companies generally use either in-house or off-the-shelf movements, the latter supplied by various manufacturers. Many high-end brands like Patek Philippe, Piaget, and Breguet can produce in-house movements that are optimized for their portfolios. A watch company is considered complete when it can produce its own movement, but many still rely on outsourced ones from large Swiss manufacturers like ETA and Sellita. Yet, the market has changed. A few established brands have decided to offer entry-range automatic watches and mostly,?microbrands are all over the place, with the need to offer mechanical movements for accessible prices. Alternatives to?the usual Swiss generic?calibres have thus become crucial.The time and expense to design and build an in-house movement isn't a viable option for many smaller brands, and even major companies with their own movement production facilities also rely on off-the-shelf calibres for many models. It's been th

Cartier Introduced the new Tank MC Skeleton in Palladium - Monochrome Watches
Cartier introduced the new Tank MC , which is according to Cartier themselves, the most masculine version of the Tank ever. The new Tank MC comes in two version: as an automatic version with Cartier’s in-house caliber 1904 MC and as a manually wound, fully skeletonized version in Palladium. While we’re sure the Tank MC Automatic will be a hit in the boutiques, we love to focus on the latter.?In the past Cartier has introduced several fully skeletonized wrist watches, like the Santos Dumont Squelette and the Santos 100 Squelette. The new Tank MC Skeleton features the exact same fully skeletonized manually wound movement, offering 72 hours of power reserve. The new Tank MC Skeleton measures a “hefty” (at least for a Tank) 39.10 mm from left to right and 43.9 mm from lug to lug, making this into one of the biggest Tank models available. Despite the larger dimensions, the case’s height measures a pleasant 9.3 mm. Ad - Scroll to continue with article

Introducing: The Hublot Big Bang Unico Ice Bang
This year, the Hublot Big Bang Unico is out to please a wider demographic. Issued in a bright orange ceramic case (and a slightly less eye-catching but no less unusual green ceramic variant), the counterpart of this extravagant model is the Big Bang Unico Ice Bang, which looks back over its shoulder to the first Ice Bang released in 2006. A limited edition of 100 pieces, the Big Bang Unico Ice Bang will be available exclusively online. In a departure from the transparent Kermit-green Big Bang Unico Saxem, the new Big Bang Unico Ice Bang tones down the colour palette and goes for a more contained and sober look.When the Big Bang erupted on the scene in 2005, it was the paragon of a loud, oversized, high-testosterone watch bristling with unusual combinations of materials. After almost two decades, it still has a powerful presence, but most of us have grown accustomed to its bold personality and almost expect each successive model to outdo the last one with more exaggerated colours and fa

In-Depth: Diving With The New Aquastar Model 60
Aquastar made a name for itself in the early 1960s as one of the first purveyors of purpose-built dive watches. Starting as a company that made watches and other maritime instruments, it became one of the most well-known watch brands for serious SCUBA divers and underwater professionals. It found a certain type of fame on the wrists of everyone from Jacques Cousteau’s team of explorers to US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, who wore an Aquastar while aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste for his pioneering journey to the bottom of Challenger Deep at a record-breaking depth of 10,911 metres (for the record, the Deep Sea Special was strapped outside, some Longines stopwatches were onboard, and Walsh was wearing an Aquastar). After a bit of a lull during the quartz crisis, Aquastar was revived in 2020 by none other than Rick Marei, the man famous for rejuvenating another esoteric dive watch brand, Doxa. Today, we take the brand’s latest creation underwater, the Aquastar Model 60, a tribu

Chronoswiss Flying Regulator Night and Day - hands-on review (specs & price)
Chronoswiss has built its reputation around an easily recognizable design first and, most importantly, on its extensive (for over 30 years now) use of a specific display: the regulator. Quite old-school for some years, the brand has been revived recently and has started to offer stronger and more modern designs, for instance with the?Flying Regulator Open Gear or a Bit-Coin inspired watch. Today, the brand presents a new model with added complications: the?Chronoswiss Flying Regulator Night and Day.Basically, the recipe used for the creation of the?Chronoswiss Flying Regulator Night and Day is the same as the Open Gear: a mix of traditional?design codes with more modern features, an architectural construction of the dial, with raised parts and apparent mechanical parts and, of course, the use of the iconic and dear-to-the-brand regulator display. This has become the hallmark of the brand since its first regulator wristwatch in 1987 and this is clearly not about to change. Yet, while th