In-Depth - The Audemars Piguet Calibre 4400, The New In-House, Integrated Chronograph
The launch of the Code 11.59 collection is a crucial moment for Audemars Piguet. There has been no product launch of this magnitude over the past 20 years for the brand. In this respect, the Code collection presentation was the perfect opportunity to introduce a long-anticipated development that was announced a few years ago: the Audemars Piguet Calibre 4400, an in-house, integrated chronograph movement – by no means a small achievement since chronographs are extremely difficult to develop.Long awaited, finally here!Until now, Audemars Piguet has manufactured a few high-end chronographs in-house in the Le Locle APRP manufacture. However, the brand relied mostly on outsourced chronograph movements – either integrated with the Piguet-based?FP1185, or modular with Dubois-Depraz modules on top of the in-house 3120 Calibre. At last, the long-awaited Audemars Piguet in-house, integrated chronograph is now here! Ad - Scroll to continue with article

Hands-On - Chopard Alpine Eagle 33 Automatic (Specs & Price)
Fast on the heels of the Alpine Eagle Pine Green model, Chopard is also releasing six references in a new 33mm case size. When the Alpine Eagle luxury sports watch collection was introduced in 2019, the first time-and-date models were offered in 41mm and 36mm case sizes, moving up to 44mm cases for the chronograph models The new, smaller case size is evidently targeting women and comes in ethical rose gold or Lucent Steel – and combinations of both materials- with or without diamonds on the bezel. Like all members of the Alpine Eagle family, the watch and the chronometer-certified movement are developed and manufactured in-house. And perhaps the best news of all, the date window featured on larger 41mm non-jewellery models has been suppressed.Downsizing a watch while retaining its personality might seem to be an easy task, but it requires a comprehensive study of proportions and balance to ensure the genetic traits of the collection don’t get lost. Although there have alway

In-depth - The GMT Collection by Bell & Ross
Since its very creation, Bell & Ross has focused on military forces and, as its preferred theme, pilots. From the earliest days, when the watches were manufactured by Sinn to the present collections, pilots have been the central focus of the brand’s core collection. But “pilot” is a wide definition. The needs of a jet fighter officer aren’t the same as an airline captain or the needs of a frequent traveller. In this context, there’s one definitive function, the GMT complication, the one that helps you track time-zones. And Bell & Ross is no stranger to the GMT watch. Today, we’ll try to understand how it works by looking at three watches from the Paris-based brand.The days of military watches at Bell & Ross are far from over; however, the brand had to adapt to the real world and, without losing its origins of military-inspired and pilot’s watches, it started to offer watches for the urban gentleman. The pinnacle of this vision was l

The Cloche de Cartier 2021, in the Prive Collection
Cartier's famed Collection Privee Cartier Paris (CPCP) was the jeweller's answer to the growing demand for men's timepieces with high-quality mechanical calibres. Launched at SIHH in 1998, the CPCP was intended to showcase Cartier's most iconic designs, including the Santos Dumont, Tortue, Tonneau, Tank Basculante, Tank Asymetrique and Cloche, among others. Due to lukewarm sales, the collection was phased out after a decade. Harking back to the CPCP, Cartier's Collection Prive was quietly launched in 2017 and has, over the last four years, been used as a platform to release numbered and limited edition runs of Cartier's iconic case shapes, starting with the Crash in the line's inaugural year. The Crash was followed by the Tank Cintree, the Tonneau, and the Asymetrique in the succeeding years. 2021 marks the Cloche's turn in the spotlight.An early version of the Cloche de CartierThe cloche shape (French for bell) made its first appearance in the house of Cartier as a diamond and onyx wa

Patek Philippe Advanced Research 5750 Minute Repeater
Founded in 2005,?Patek Philippe‘s Advanced Research department aims at improving mechanical movements and bringing innovative solutions in the fields of materials (silicon, for instance) and technologies for watchmaking. This goes for the introduction of Silinvar (2005), the Spiromax balance spring (2006), the Pulsomax escapement (2008), the Oscillomax ensemble (2011), and a further optimized version of the Spiromax balance spring (2017). In 2017, the brand will look at something different, and that is a compliant mechanism for the dual-time function, in an Aquanaut. Today, following a year with already a grande sonnerie watch, the brand continues its researches in the field of chiming watch, with major improvements on the minute repeating watch, with the new Patek Philippe Advanced Research 5750 Minute Repeater.?The technical solutionsThe goal of the Advanced Research department is to bring new solutions in order to innovate, or in the present case to improve existing mechanisms