Interview - Christian Knoop, Creative Director for IWC
With the opening of the new mono-brand IWC boutique in Rotterdam, IWC further expands its presence in the Netherlands. It's the first boutique in the world to reveal a completely new architectural concept, which invites people to fully immerse themselves in the world of IWC. As soon as you come inside, you're stepping into an environment that allows you to discover everything about the brand's history, its collections and more. During the opening event, we sat down with Christian Knoop, Creative Director for IWC, to learn more about this new IWC experience.Frank Geelen, MONOCHROME – Christian, stepping into this new boutique is really like stepping into the world of IWC, but how would you personally describe that world? Ad - Scroll to continue with article Christian Knoop, Creative Director For IWC – We have a long history as you know but a long hist

LVMH Sets New Records In 2022 With Revenue Up 23% At EUR 79.2 Billion - Monochrome Watches
LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company, has just released its results for 2022. The luxury goods market took a further leap forward, and it has been another record year for the French powerhouse, with a revenue of EUR 79.2 billion, up 23% compared to 2021. The profit from recurring operations is also up 23% at EUR 21.1 billion.The growth has been driven by Europe (+35%), Japan (+31%) and the USA (+15%), while lockdowns impacted business in China. As a result, the trend in Asia (excluding Japan) was flat (+0%), and the relative contribution of the region to the Group’s revenue fell by 5 points to 30%.The revenue of all business groups is driven by the fashion and leather goods activities (+25% at EUR 38.7 billion). Louis Vuitton alone achieved EUR 20 billion in revenue! The Watches & Jewelry business group, the sector that concerns us at MONOCHROME, reported sales are up 18% at EUR 10.6 billion with a profit from recurring operations of EUR 2 billion (+20.1%). Th

Hands-On - Bovet Recital 21 Retrograde Perpetual Calendar (Specs & Price)
Functional elegance – The perpetual calendar holds a special place in the heart of watch aficionados. Its mechanical memory and ability to display the date for decades into the future, even for leap years, is a feat of horological engineering. But most of all, the perpetual calendar is a thing of beauty. And when you combine it with a brand named Bovet, you can expect the result to be pretty spectacular. Meet the?Bovet Recital 21 Retrograde Perpetual Calendar, an elegant, original and superbly executed watch presented at SIHH 2019.For watch enthusiasts, there are not many experiences as rewarding as admiring a fine perpetual calendar. Many such wristwatches conform to the canons of classical beauty, in particular, those set by the Patek Philippe. Still, it is always a great pleasure to discover a beautiful perpetual calendar that stands out from the crowd, specifically as so many examples of this complication display the ubiquitous Dubois-Depraz module layout. In this respect, di

Hands-On Grand Seiko Heritage Shunbun Spring Drive Pink Dial SBGA413
The highlight of 2021 for Grand Seiko has been, without a doubt, the White Birch Hi-Beat SLGH005, a watch that came on the market with a stunning silvery-white textured dial, a relatively new case design (sharper and slimmer) and an impressive movement with multiple mechanical innovations, including the Dual Impulse escapement. For a couple of years now, Grand Seiko is definitely hot and its watches are becoming highly sought-after. Now that the year 2021 has ended, it seems that another watch is slowly taking the White Birch’s place on the throne, a watch that isn’t new as it came on the market in June 2019… But for the US only. We’re talking about the Grand Seiko “Shunbun” SBGA413 and its surprising pink dial. And since it will soon be available worldwide, alongside 3 other Season editions, it might well be on its way to becoming the new hottest GS on the market.?The trend for coloured dials…For long, luxury watches have mostly been available

Introducing: The Tuseno Windseeker, an Accessible All-Rounder with Nautical Vibe
New watch micro-brands are created almost every day, with dozens of them surfacing and many disappearing as fast as they came. This is why we tend to be slightly selective about what we cover here on MONOCHROME. From time to time, however, one of these new ventures catches our attention, such as Tuseno, a relatively young Swedish brand created in 2015. One of its latest creations is a rather handsome watch with strong Nordic nautical inspiration. And this accessible automatic all-rounder is named the Windseeker.?The story of Tuseno started in 2015 in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden. The brand operates from there, with production partners in Asia, Switzerland and Sweden. The brand states that “from 2020 onwards, our watches will be produced in small quantities in Switzerland, and all new projects will be 100% mechanical,” which speaks to us. Tuseno also plans to bring parts of the production line to Sweden, next to the Swiss assembly. Ad - Scroll to continue with a