Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Selfwinding 34mm Ceramic Carolina Bucci
A 50th anniversary is a big deal, and Audemars Piguet is making hay while the sun shines. We've seen plenty of birthday treats this year, including the much-anticipated anniversary Jumbo, but nothing quite like this mesmerising full-black ceramic Royal Oak made with Italian jewellery designer Carolina Bucci. Marking her third collaboration with AP, Bucci is renowned by AP fans for her glistening Frosted Gold cases. For this latest project, Bucci puts away her hammer and dreams up a fascinating transformation of the iconic guilloche tapisserie design that Gerald Genta used on the maiden voyage of the Royal Oak in 1972. The unexpected and entirely on-trend face of the Royal Oak beguiles with an ever-changing iridescent rainbow dial that will be as hard to pin down as the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. ?From frosted gold to rainbowsSince its debut in 1972, the Royal Oak became the precursor and has since commanded the market for luxury sports watches. Gerald Genta's iconic design, w

Hands-On: Impressions about the Omega Speedmaster Moonphase Meteorite
A moon phase complication on a watch that went to the Moon and is named, at least for some of the editions, the Moonwatch… Add to that a glass of moonshine and a slice of mooncake, and you’ll be over the Moon. I allow you to blame me in the comments for this lame introduction, which doesn’t feel like asking for the Moon… Maybe I should do a moonlight flit and disappear. Right, back to business. As our readers know, it has become a tradition for Omega to present a new Speedmaster on one of the first Tuesdays of the year. Yesterday, marking its first introduction of the year, the Biel-based brand presented a remake of its Speedmaster Moonphase. Smaller, slimmer, powered by a modern hand-wound movement, slightly over-engineered as you’d expect from Omega, using bits of the Moon on the dial, it promised the Moon. But has Omega shot for the Moon here? Let’s find out (yes, I’m done with the moon-related jokes).A quick history of the Speedmaster Moonp

The Omega Co-Axial Escapement Fully Explained - Monochrome Watches
The watchmaking industry is never short of innovations. Whether in the field of materials, movement architectures, displays or regulating organs, this industry never ceases to amaze with technical solutions to improve the accuracy of our beloved mechanical watches. However, when it comes to production at an industrial level, innovation is far more scarce. If you think about it, the escapement of our watches, the lever escapement (which is used by 99% of the mechanical movements) was conceived in 1750… However, there’s one man, and one brand, that believed in changing this situation, by launching the only escapement produced on an industrial scale other than the Swiss lever escapement. This is the story of the Co-Axial escapement, how Omega adopted it, and how it works.Challenging a system that is as accepted as the Swiss lever takes more than just a spirit of innovation. It takes conviction, it takes devotion and it takes time. This is exactly what happened to master watchm

Branding and Jaquet Droz's automata - Monochrome Watches
It¡äs a funny thing with brands: we can hardly imagine today that there used to be a time that practically every name of a customer, retailer or group of collectors, could be easily stamped on a dial, movement or case.The now prestigious names of established brands were hidden away, either engraved in the movement, the case-back or even unmentioned. The brand, if watch producers even considered themselves to be one, was a modest servant of the public. Jaeger-LeCoultre produced dentist tools and shaving equipment to survive and Patek Philippe watches that are now sought after in auction houses, were proudly bearing the names of the retailers on the dial, above or even sometimes instead of the brand itself. There are also many examples of and Tiffany & Co like this vintage pre-daytona that somehow didn’t sell that well, back in the days. Ad - Scroll to continue with article

Vacheron Constantin for Only Watch 2009 - Monochrome Watches
On September 24th the charity auction Only Watch will be held in Monaco. Many of the most prestigious Swiss watch brands created a unique watch for this charity event that is held during the Monaco Yacht Show.?All the proceeds of the Only Watch charity auction will be donated to the research of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. The next Only Watch auction is organized in close collaboration with Patrizzi & Co and the Monaco Yacht Show, and is under the patronage of Prince Albert II of Monaco.Only Watch 2009 Quai de i’Ile dial close-upEspecially for Only Watch 2009 Vacheron Constantin created it's first tantalum watch. Vacheron Constantin decided to create a tantalum Quai de l’Ile.? Christian Selmoni, head of Product Marketing, says this choice was made because it fits into the research spirit needed when fighting against a disease as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.The case exists of 10 parts which are fixed to a titanium inner case. The function of this titanium inner case is t