A year ago, Bell & Ross introduced the third generation of its Vintage family, a line that references elements from hugely coveted but unfortunately rare military-issue watches from the second half of the 20th century. The latest series retains the large Arabic numbers but with smaller and slimmer cases, while spawning several thematic variations such as the Bellytanker and Garde-Côtes.

Now, way ahead of Baselworld 2018, Bell & Ross has unveiled the BR-V2 Steel Heritage – a two-piece range that continues to mine the vintage-inspired wave with a couple of nuanced tweaks.

Both the BR V2-92 and the BR V2-94 Steel Heritage feature a colour palette that borrows heavily from vintage dive watches, although Bell & Ross’ heritage is strongest with military aviation watches. They have black dials with sand-coloured Super-Luminova that recalls the colour of aged tritium.

The second retro element is the contrasting red depth rating on the dial – something most associated with the Rolex “Red” Submariner.

And more unusually, the Steel Heritage is available with a rubber strap moulded with a crosshatch motif that recalls the “Tropic” rubber straps of the 1960s that were similar but perforated.

Along with domed sapphire crystals, both Steel Heritage watches feature bi-directional rotating bezels, screw-down casebacks and crowns with protectors, blurring the lines between diving and aviation timepieces.

The BR V2-92 Steel Heritage measures 41mm in diameter and is powered by the BR-CAL.302, which is a Sellita SW300 that’s visible through its sapphire caseback.

Also measuring 41mm, the BR V2-94 Steel Heritage is a bi-compax chronograph with screw-down pushers.  It is powered by the BR-CAL.301, which is an ETA 2892 with a Dubois-Depraz chronograph module on top.

Price and Availability

The BRV2-92 Steel Heritage costs US$2900 on rubber strap and US$3200 on bracelet. And the BRV2-94 Steel Heritage is US$4300 on rubber strap and US$4600 on bracelet.

For more, visit Bell & Ross.

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When Breitling’s new owners, the private equity outfit CVC Capital Partners, recruited Georges Kern from Richemont in July last year, it was surprise all round. The man who led IWC on a decade’s worth of lucrative growth had left the post of watchmaking division chief at Richemont to lead the faltering maker of aviation watches.

In the job barely half a year, Mr Kern and his financier bosses (who used to own Formula 1) have recruited an all-star team from across the industry, lured by equity stakes in Breitling, with Mr Kern himself reputed to have 5%. The team includes the former chief marketing officer of Audemars Piguet, Tim Sayler, to Louis Westphalen, who was previously running the watch store on American blog Hodinkee.

Mr Kern and his team rapidly revamped Breitling top to bottom, even redesigning the company logo to eliminate the wings from the italic “B”. The first fresh product line under Mr Kern’s aegis is the Navitimer 8, a vintage-inspired range of watches conceived to evoke Breitling’s glory days as a supplier of aviation instruments.

The name comes from Breitling’s Huit Aviation department – “8” is huit in French – set up in 1938 to make cockpit clocks and other dashboard instruments for aircraft. Named after the eight-day power reserve common in such clocks, the department’s name has been revived for what is to be Breitling’s flagship line. And “8” is also considered an auspicious number in Chinese culture, being phonetically similar to prosperity, a fortuitous coincidence given Mr Kern’s stated goal of drastically growing Breitling’s presence in China.

The first generation Navitimer with “beads of rice” bezel and a Valjoux movement, circa 1952

A Breitling Wakmann Type A-10A eight-day cockpit chronograph made for the US Air Force in the 1950s

Though it gets its name from Breitling’s most famous wristwatch, the slide-rule equipped Navitimer, the Navitimer 8 is not an out-and-out remake. Rather the Navitimer 8 is similar to Tudor’s Heritage watches like the Black Bay, being an amalgamation of design elements from various vintage watches that comes together for a vaguely retro feel.

So the Navitimer 8 relies on the case of the original Navitimer with its bevelled lugs, a notched bezel and sword-shaped hands.

And the dial has various elements found in several vintage Breitling pilot’s watches, including the railway minute track, Arabic numerals and sword-shaped hands.

Note that all prices are in Swiss francs an subject to change.

The top of the line model is the Navitimer 8 B01. Powered by the in-house Calibre 01 chronograph movement that boasts both a column wheel and vertical clutch (and the same movement Breitling supplies to Tudor for its Black Bay Chrono), the Navitimer 8 B01 is 43mm in diameter, and available in steel or 18k red gold.

The Navitimer 8 B01 in stainless steel costs SFr7100 on strap and SFr7800 on steel bracelet while the 18k red gold version costs SFr19,500. They are slated for delivery in June.

More affordable is the Navitimer 8 Chronograph, which has the same styling but a Valjoux 7750 movement inside. Also 43mm, it’s available in steel, or steel with a black coating.

The Navitimer 8 Chronograph in stainless steel costs SFr5100 on strap and SFr5800 on steel bracelet while the DLC-coated version costs SFr6300. They will be available starting June.

The Navitimer 8 Unitime is a world time set via the crown, which moves the cities disc, hour hand, as well as 24-hour disc in one hour steps, both forwards and backwards.

The case is steel and 43mm in diameter. It’s powered by the Calibre B35, an in-house automatic with 70 hours power reserve, and the world time module on top.

The Navitimer 8 Unitime costs SFr7950 on strap and SFr8650 on steel bracelet, with deliveries starting October.

Smaller and more basic is the Navitimer 8 Day-Date. This is 41mm, steel and powered by the Breitling Calibre 45, an ETA 2824 with a day and date display.

The Navitimer 8 Day Date costs SFr3800 on strap and SFr4350 on steel bracelet, also available starting October.

Also 41mm is the entry-level model of the range, the Navitimer 8 Automatic. It’s equipped with the Breitling Calibre 17, which is actually the ETA 2824. The steel case is available brushed or with a black coating.

The Navitimer 8 Automatic in stainless steel costs SFr3600 on strap and SFr4150 on steel bracelet, and the DLC-coated version costs SFr4800. They’ll hit stores in June.

Announced just two weeks ago, the DB28 Steel Wheels is De Bethune’s first major release by the new owners, a consortium led by chief executive Pierre Jacques. While the people at the top have changed, De Bethune’s resident genius Denis Flageollet is still in charge of watchmaking, and the watches remain as impressive as they ever were.

The DB28 Steel Wheels is a variation on a theme, and a successful theme at that. It’s essentially the signature DB28 with an open-worked dial. But it also imports recognisable details from various De Bethune watches to create a novel looking timepiece.

While mechanically identical to the standard DB28 with the same cal. DB2115V4 inside, the Steel Wheels looks far more complex and mechanical, and shiny. It gets its name from the open-worked, delta-shaped bridge on the front that reveals the wheels of the gear train below. An unusual engraved take on Cotes de Geneve has been applied on the skeletonised bridge, novel but not particularly attractive because it feels coarse, instead of the light and luminous feel of traditional Geneva stripes.

Everything else about the watch, however, is lovely. The hour markers are polished titanium spheres, which echo the spherical moon phase at six o’clock that’s composed of two halves, each of blued and polished titanium.

The brand’s signature blued titanium has been used liberally beyond the moon phase. A chapter ring in the metal sits beneath the hour spheres, and blued titanium is also used for the minute hand and to frame the sapphire hour hand. The see-through hand is yet another detail taken from several other De Bethune watches, originally conceived to ensure heavily engraved dials would not be obscured.

A feature standard to the DB28 but no less appealing is the polished, rounded bridge for the balance wheel, which is one of De Bethune’s exotic in-house creations in titanium with gold weights – the same one used in the DB25 World Traveller.

The distinctive triple pare-chute shock absorber springs frame each end of the balance bridge, terminating at a highly polished titanium bridge that also accommodates the canon pinion for the hands.

Nearly all is the action in the DB28 is on the front. The back is well finished, mostly covered in well spaced perlage, but plain in comparison to the dial. The key feature is the power reserve indicator – the watch runs for six days on full wind – which is indicated by a blued steel hand, while relying on a series of finely formed and finished levers and gears.

Size-wise the Steel Wheels is the same as the stock model: 42.6mm in diameter, with the option of long or short sprung lugs.

Price and availability

Limited to just 25 watches, the DB28 Steel Wheels is priced at SFr83,000 before taxes. It will be available starting April 2018.

The latest in Piaget’s ever growing continuum of progressively slimmer watches, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept is in absolute terms the thinnest hand-wound watch ever created, trumping even the unreliable but awesomely thin Jean Lassale 1200 of 1976 that was just over 3mm (with a movement 1200 micrometers, or 1.2mm, thick).

In fact, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept comes just a month after Piaget’s claim to the title of the world’s thinnest automatic watch with the Altiplano Ultimate Automatic 910P, which now seems like a towering 4.3mm high.

Albeit still an experimental timepiece, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept is a barely-there 2mm high in its entirety, case, movement, crystal – everything. Make no mistake; the entire concept watch is the very same thickness as the thinnest movement in the world back in 1957, the landmark Piaget cal. 9P – Swiss watchmakers took several decades to travel a few millimetres downwards.

The brilliant but unlamented Jean Lassale cal. 1200. Image Jjcasalo/Wikipedia

Four years in development, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept is essentially a souped up (or rather, down) version of the Altiplano 900P launched in 2013, relying on several similar principles in the movement construction, while pushing the envelope on some clever new features.

One of the crucial factors in the slimness of the 900P was the case back doubling up as the main plate of the movement, meaning that many of the moving parts were mounted on the case back, resulting in a total height of 3.65mm, the slimmest on the market then. Notably the case-back-as-the-main-plate concept is actually an old one, having been pioneered in quartz movements by ETA in the 1970s, debuting in the Concord Delirium in 1979. ETA later recycled the concept for Swatch watches, as well as the super-slim Swatch Skin.

Naturally the Altiplano Ultimate Concept is built on the same foundation, with a wafer-thin case back serving as the movement’s base plate, but going even further and replacing the bridges as well. A consequence of that construction is the use of ballbearings instead of jewels, which is why the movement has just 13 jewels instead of the 21 in most good watches.

The case and base plate as one. Image Piaget

Like Piaget’s other recent record-setting thin watches, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept has its hands and dial are slightly recessed, sitting just below the narrow bridge. This protects the hands from touching the crystal and stopping the watch, which can happen when the watch is worn too tightly and the case bends ever so slightly.

A good portion of the slimming down was helped by making necessary components as flat as possible, while getting rid of parts that are not vital. As Piaget did with its recent ultra-thin movements, certain wheels of the movement were flattened from the traditional 0.2mm to a mere 0.12mm, which isn’t much thicker than a human hair.

The mainspring was stripped of its cover and drum, for instance, leaving just the ratchet wheel on top and ball bearings below. It’s worth pointing out that despite its razor-thin height, the mainspring is large enough to deliver a respectable 44-hour power reserve.

The rest of the way to 2mm was thanks to some out of the box thinking, for the concept watch boasts five additional patented innovations that further whittled down the height of the watch.

First of all, the slenderness of the 41mm case requires substantial rigidity, which is why it was constructed using a specific cobalt-based alloy – crucial since the watch case literally holds the gears and pivots of the movement, and the slightest distortion may impede function.

Altiplano Ultimate Concept at 2mm (above), and the chunky 4.3mm automatic below

The 2mm case calls for a barely-there sapphire crystal that’s an unbelievable 0.2mm, which is one fifth that of a standard watch. Amazingly, it still adheres to a modern water resistance rating of 30m. And that leads to the second patent: a groove along the rim of the case to accommodate both the crystal and the exact amount of adhesive required to keep it in place.

Another patent concerns the flat, rectangular “telescopic” crown that is seamlessly recessed into the caseband and secured to the winding stem with a “spring clip”. This miniaturised crown serves to protect the stem from impact since the crown sits flush with the case. But the downside of the mini-crown is the impossibility of operating it with bare fingers, which is why a tiny electronic drill-like tool is required for both winding and setting.

Also patented is the drastically reduced keyless works. Instead of a conventional winding pinion that rotates perpendicular to the movement, the  Altiplano Ultimate Concept relies on a patented worm gear system that consists of a small screw-like “worm” that directly meshes with a toothed gear (or the worm wheel), reducing the volume occupied as well as play between the wheels.

The mechanism for selecting the function of the crown (namely winding or setting) has been reduced to a lever fitted to an “intermediate wheel”, which engages with the respective gears for each function when the crown is pulled.

But the primary development responsible for its thinness is the patented construction of the balance wheel. To start with, the layout has been inverted, leaving the balance sitting above the hairspring. Visible at nine o’clock, the balance is “floating”, having neither a cock nor shock protection. Instead, the balance staff turns on ball bearings integrated within the base of the staff. And the rate is adjusted via a mobile stud since there’s no index regulator.

Visually the watch is striking, looking less mechanical than machine. The main plate is black coated, leaving all the movement parts standing in stark contrast. On the wrist it resembles a paper printout, which is a statement in itself.

Reducing the height of the watch also leads to severe weight loss: the watch tips the scales at just 21.7g – the equivalent of five sheets of A4 paper, or a Richard Mille Rafael Nadal wristwatch for the very rich.

Even the most prosaic component of the watch had to be reworked to accommodate its thinness. The alligator leather strap – seamless and glued, not stitched – measures a gossamer 1.1mm thick with a sliver of Kevlar running down its middle to prevent it from tearing.

Given the impracticality of its predominant quality, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept (ref. G0A43900) remains just that, a concept. However, expect to see a version tweaked to survive public consumption in the not too distant future, as well as some of the innovations propagating into other extra-thin watches.

While most brands were busy selling new watches at SIHH 2018, A. Lange & Söhne and F.P. Journe – notably two watch different brands that nevertheless cater to the same clientele – took a moment to hand out their respective watchmaking awards to a handful of promising young talents, who collectively prove there is imagination and skill in modern watchmaking.

The F. A. Lange Watchmaking Excellence Award 2017 started in May 2017 when eight watchmakers spent time training at Lange’s factory in Glashütte, before returning home with six months to construct a regulator watch from scratch. With four criteria in mind – originality, technical functionality, quality of craftsmanship and aesthetics – the the judges meet in November and unanimously decided the winner of the €10,000 prize was Timothé Raguin, a student at Lycée Polyvalent Edgar Faure in Morteau, a small town in eastern France.

Featuring the time display in sub-dials neatly arranged along the gear train, Raguin’s clever construction features a double seconds – a constant seconds at nine and a deadbeat seconds in the 12 o’clock sub-dial that’s linked to the escape wheel via an additional, dial-side escapement. Coincidentally, or not, it’s the same complication that was a favourite of Walter Lange and replicated in the 1815 limited edition bearing his name. Even in its relatively raw, unfinished state, Raguin’s creation is a admirable, being classical yet inventive.

Because of the high quality of the other entries, the judges also awarded second and third prizes, to Veit Rothaupt (movement pictured top left) of Glashütte and Vesa Kulkk (top right) of Espoo, Finland, respectively.

And alongside the prizes, Lange chief executive Wilhem Schmid also announced the prizes would be last of the F. A. Lange Watchmaking Excellence Award – from 2018 onwards the competition will be renamed the Walter Lange Watchmaking Excellence Award in honour of the late Mr Lange.

In downtown Geneva at the F.P. Journe manufacture, the eponymous watchmaker and the non-profit Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH) chose the winners of the third Young Talent Competition. Open to apprentice watchmakers in 47 watchmaking schools across 14 countries, the contest requires the entrant to “independently conceive and constructed a watch, a clock, or a technical construction”.

Three winners were selected this year – all from the same school as the winner of Lange’s award, the Lycée Edgar Faure. There must be something in the water at Morteau. Each walked away with diploma presented by Francois-Paul Journe and a grant of SFr3000 sponsored by Horotec, a Swiss watch tool manufacturer.

The youngest of the three winners, 20-year old Remy Cools, presented the Mechanica Tempus Pendulette Tourbillon, a standing clock with a one-minute tourbillon that utilises part from a L’Epee carriage clock. Inspired by grand names like Breguet, Berthoud, Janvier and Leroy, Cools conceived it as a modern construction with traditional elements and a high degree of decoration.

His peer Theo Auffret also presented a tourbillon, but in wristwatch form. The Tourbillon à Paris is a 38mm wristwatch with a hand-made tourbillon, but nevertheless a timepiece conceived to be robust enough to be worn daily, while being easy to poise and regulate. He even hand-made the case from silver bars, a feat that took a month.

Charles Routhier’s creation was the Halley, a wristwatch inspired by the comet of the same name. The dial is plated brass, radially brushed by hand and embedded with metallic spheres. The balance cock visible on the front is shape like the tail of a comet.

Luxury watch fair SIHH 2018 surprised on the upside. Not in a breathless-amazing-spectacular manner, but “hey-that’s-pretty-good” kind of way. I say that because a handful of brands rolled out good, even great, watches, mostly priced relatively reasonably. Overall, the watches introduced can be classified according to the response each elicited: “Wow”, “Weird”, “Whoops”, and “What the…”.

The fair was also notable in terms of industry development. Everyone was getting onto the e-commerce and social media bandwagon in one way or another; Richemont went all-in with online retail by offering to buy all of Yoox Net-a-Porter two days after the fair closed. Even the fair itself had tremendous space dedicated to photo booths and Instagram-able moments. But more importantly, strong brands are clearly getting stronger because of good strategies and products, reinforcing my belief that the gap between the winners and losers will widen; brands that do business in a smart way will be strongly positioned in the coming years, while everyone else is going to struggle.

Smile, you’re on IG. Image credit FHH

Let’s start with the products. The standout brands in that regard were A. Lange & Söhne, Audemars Piguet, Cartier, and IWC.

The German watchmaker had a single standout product, but it was a big one: the Triple Split. It’s a watch that is cool in the way the Mercedes G63 AMG 6×6 is cool – unnecessary, impressive and, I say again, big, both physically and mechanically. And it costs about 10% over the Double Split, which is reasonable as such things go.

Image credit FHH

Audemars Piguet, on the other hand, announced a slew of good watches, or should I say, Royal Oaks. Many were variations of popular models, including a frosted version of the Double Balance Wheel, but the most notable were the simplest and the most complex. The ordinary looks of the RD#2 Perpetual Calendar belie the clever engineering that make it the thinnest perpetual on the market, while the Royal Oak Extra-Thin ref. 15202IP is a new take on a classic, the “Jumbo” in titanium and platinum.

Even more than AP, and fittingly since it is the biggest brand by turnover at the fair, Cartier had a string of hits on its hands. It had something for everyone, disparate products united by an instantly recognisable Cartier heritage. That ranged from the Tank Cintree for traditionalists, a revamped Santos for the mass-market, aspirational luxury buyer, and the peculiar but remarkably compelling Révélation d’une Panthère that has to be seen in the metal to be appreciated. After a couple of years of going in several varied directions, Cartier is back on track.

IWC marked its 150^th year with a Jubilee Collection that was diverse and primarily “Engineered for Men”. Most of them are variations of the brand’s bestsellers, good-looking watches at fair prices catered for the ordinary consumer, so not notably interesting, save for one. A double digital display watch inspired by the 19^th century pocket watch of the same name, the Tribute to Pallweber is the most technically interesting IWC in a long time, bringing back hazy memories of the 1990s and early 2000s when IWC was on a hot streak in terms of technical, Swiss-German watchmaking.

Image credit FHH

In contrast, IWC’s most comparable rival in Richemont, Jaeger-LeCoultre, had a pretty flat year. Alongside a new line of rustic brown watch straps, its major launch was the Polaris, a line of sports watches modelled on the Polaris Memovox diving alarm of 1968. Although the inspiration is aquatic, the result is a diverse line of watches that also caters to drivers and pilots. While the Polaris is a well executed product, the fit, finish and pricing are all good, the design is vaguely vintage but uninspired.

Although there was talk of the major Hybris Mechanica complicated watch scheduled for launch later in 2018, JLC appears to be suffering from a lack of a chief executive, having gone without one since the last boss lost his job a year ago.

A map that leads to… Image Jaeger-LeCoultre

Panerai did slightly better, but still slightly bland. It unveiled a pair of highly complicated tourbillon watches that feel slightly out of step with the times. Perhaps the brand is in a holding pattern as a new chief executive takes the reins.

Tourbillons aside, the real action was in the Luminor Due 38mm, a seemingly tiny Panerai that will probably fill two contrasting roles. It will be a ladies’ watch in developed markets where Panerai is already well known as a maker of big watches, but a men’s watch in developing markets where Panerai is unknown and a 38mm watch is more palatable. Alongside that Panerai unveiled a new line of entry-level Luminor Logo watches, now powered by in-house movements but starting at just €4600.

Montblanc went down the same route as Jaeger-LeCoultre with its flagship 1858 line but a far more aesthetically pleasing manner. Inspired by 1930s military aviation watches but now targeted at mountaineers (go figure), the new 1858 watches are nonetheless well designed in terms of proportions, details and style, and also strongly priced, thanks in no small part to the dapper Italian who’s running the watch department.

But perhaps the best value product of the fair comes from an unexpected source: Baume & Mercier. The Baumatic starts at US$3700 and features a newly developed automatic movement that has a 120-hour (or five-day) power reserve and silicon hairspring that gives it magnetism resistance of 1500 Gauss (or 50% more than a mille gauss). The movement was developed by ValFleurier, the secretive movement builder owned by Richemont that makes more movements than any of the group’s brands let on.

ValFleurier is also responsible for the movement inside the base model FiftySix at Vacheron Constantin, the Geneva brand’s most affordable watch to date. Despite some shortcomings the FiftySix is a good product at its price, but clearly not catered to the serious minded horology enthusiast.

Also worth pointing out was Piaget’s Altiplano Ultimate Concept Watch, which was unnervingly and impractically thin at 2mm high and requiring an electric drill to wind, but points to interesting developments for the brand’s slimmed down watches when some of the innovations inside inevitably make it to commercial products.

Ulysse Nardin had an odd mismatch of products. The standout was the Freak Vision, which is the most technically interesting Freak in a long time (and there have been a lot of them). And then there was the Diver Deep Dive, a 1000m creature that brings to mind one of those ugly fish that live in the pitch dark bottom of the ocean.

Image credit Ulysse Nardin

Despite the much larger Le Carré des Horlogers set up for independent brands, not much really stood out, save for Moser’s take on the wandering hours and the inventive Ressence e-Crown that uses electronics to set and wind a mechanical watch, both in a good way; and the million-euro Urwerk AMC Sympathique atomic clock that is hard to fathom.

There was one substantive timepiece outside the fair at F.P. Journe’s factory in downtown Geneva (though he showed the quartz Elegante at SIHH as a first step in developing it as a separate label), where the well-priced Chronograph Monopoussoir Rattrapante was launched. Though widely panned for being ungainly and different, it is a compelling product in person, especially in titanium. An absence of lugs make the watch wear smaller than it measures, and the movement is one of the best split-seconds calibre on the market.

Just as important as the watches was what was happening in the industry. Audemars Piguet’s chief executive revealed that the brand was going into the secondary market by taking trade-ins and then offering pre-owned watches, starting at its Swiss boutiques and then expanding elsewhere. At the same time, rumours were also circulating Richard Mille would eventually do the same. As two of the fastest growing brands, both privately-held and family-owned, the duo are perhaps the only big brands at the fair the can pull that off.

Also notable was Audemars Piguet continued, merciless trimming of retailers, a multi-year plan chief executive François-Henry Bennahmias revealed several years ago but only began to bite late last year. Happening at the same time is Richemont’s vow to rein in the grey market, a priority for the incoming watch division head Emmanuel Perrin.

Discipline in distribution only works if the products being distributed can sell, which builds a virtuous cycle for well-positioned brands. Appealing watches sell well via select channels, enhancing the brand’s appeal while raising “street” prices. It’s going to be a good year for some.

Edit January 25, 2018: Included image of Ulysse Nard Diver Deep Dive and link to Francois-Henri Bennahmias’ interview in Reuters.

Now 20 years old the IWC Portugieser Chronograph has been a top selling mainstay of the line, being a good looking watch, surprisingly flat despite its complication, and well-priced. Despite an attempt to go upmarket with IWC’s high-end in-house chronograph movement, the original Portugieser Chronograph ref. 3714 remains popular.

IWC’s 150th Anniversary Jubilee Collection offers a hint as to where the Portugieser Chronograph is headed, which is basically a better movement for the same price.

Aesthetically, the Portugieser Chronograph Edition “150 Years” gets the anniversary treatment, glossy lacquered dials in either dark blue or white. Both are familiar colours for the Portugieser Chronograph, but the shiny finish that resembles enamel is novel. Being more restrained, the white dial has the edge in visual appeal.

Inside is where the upgrade is significant. Instead of the low-cost Valjoux 7750 or Sellita SW500 inside the original ref. 3714, the anniversary chronograph is powered by the cal. 69355. IWC terms it a “manufacture” movement, think of it as a heavily upgraded Valjoux 7750 produced by IWC.

While much of basic architecture relies on the tried and tested Valjoux 7750, improvements have been made in crucial areas. Several of the key upgrades are obvious, namely the column wheel to control the chronograph start-stop, as well as the escape wheel and pallet fork produced via LIGA, a high-tech lithographic and moulding process. The technique results in a lightweight, open-worked escapement made of nickel, improving the efficiency of the movement.

The solid gold anniversary medallion on the rotor is unique to the Jubilee Collection.

Though the anniversary Portugieser Chronograph is indistinguishable from the earlier generation, it is actually slightly larger due to the new movement. The anniversary model is 41mm in diameter and 13.1mm high, making it marginally larger than the original that measures 40.9mm by 12.6mm.

The upgraded Portugieser Chronograph is barely 4% more expensive than the existing ref. 3714, making it a better buy than the original, offering more for essentially the same money.

Price and availability

The Portugieser Chronograph Edition “150 Years” is a limited edition of 2000 pieces in each colour: the blue dial (ref. IW371601), or white (ref. IW371602). It is priced at US$7150 and will be available in IWC boutiques and retailers starting October 2018.

Just days after all of Richemont’s watch brands showcased their wares at the SIHH 2018 watch fair, the Swiss luxury group has announced an offer to acquire all the shares in Yoox Net-a-Porter for €38 a share, or about 25% over Friday’s closing price, according to a just-released company announcement.

Richemont now owns about half of Yoox Net-a-Porter, a leading retailer that sold €2.1 billion of luxury goods online in 2016. It is the result of a 2015 merger between the two firms that gave the company its name, a combination that was seen at the time as Richemont divesting its online retail presence, after having taken a majority stake in Net-a-Porter in 2010.

Having already made public his aversion to growing his stable of luxury brands, which range from A. Lange & Söhne to Van Cleef & Arpels, Richemont chairman Johann Rupert is making his most aggressive investment in online retail yet, valuing Yoox Net-a-Porter at almost €3.5 billion. If successful the takeover will put Richemont ahead of its rivals like Swatch Group and Rolex in e-commerce.

Richemont recently entered e-commerce with products from several of its brands, including Cartier, IWC and Panerai, and will delist Yoox Net-a-Porter should the takeover succeed, but retain it as an separate enterprise. Nevertheless that will likely mean more watches from Richemont available in more avenues online.

Mr Federico Marchetti, chief executive officer of Yoox Net-a-Porter, has agreed to tender his shares in the offer, which requires the consent of other shareholders to succeed.

One of the most talked about watches at SIHH 2018 was the Vacheron Constantin FiftySix, by virtue of its price, which starts at just US$11,700. That’s half the price of the Overseas automatic sports watch, and a third less than the Quai de l’Île in steel. Is the watch any good?

Visually the FiftySix appears to be a departure from Vacheron Constantin’s house style, and takes a moment to get used to. But the design works.

Three by FiftySix

Three models are available (with more slated to be added later in the year), with the basic being the FiftySix Self-Winding. Having no complications, it is the thinnest of the lot, being slimmer than it looks, and cuts an elegant profile on the wrist.

Visually, however, the FiftySix Complete Calendar is the most appealing, having the traditional triple calendar layout. It’s legible and obviously modern, yet vaguely retro thanks to the triple calendar complication.

The FiftySix Day-Date is arguably the most practical, featuring the complications most useful in everyday life. But it is not as visually interesting as either of its siblings, and the displays cutting through the minute track are jarring.

Shared outsides…

According to Christian Selmoni, Vacheron Constantin’s Style & Heritage Director, the FiftySix was intended to be a “modern collection… a little bit based on [the ref. 6073 of 1956]”. It succeeds at that; while the FiftySix case shares the same distinctive lugs of the ref. 6073, it still looks and feels like a freshly conceived modern watch.

Though the case is just 40mm in diameter (all three versions are the same width), its footprint feels larger on the wrist, making it a good size for modern tastes.

Christian Selmoni, Style & Heritage Director and one of the longest tenured employees at Vacheron Constantin

Both the steel and gold versions of the FiftySix have the same case finish, which is mirror-polished on all surfaces. While the polishing is well done, it lacks visual variation, and the mirrored surface tends to pick up fingerprints.

Overall though the case looks and feels good, aided by details like the “box-shape” sapphire crystal. It feels like a proper Vacheron Constantin case, and not an entry-level one.

The same can be said of the dials, which have three primary finishes: concentric stamped guilloche on the outermost track, radial brushing on the chapter ring for the hour markers and a grained surface in the centre. That’s matched with applied hour markers – which are solid gold – as well as neat printing.

Ticking differently inside

All three models are indistinguishable on the outside, in terms of fit and finish. Inside, however, the watches diverge from each other.

The higher end FiftySix Complete Calendar and Day-Date are both powered by in-house movements  that are different calibres (cal. 2475 SC/2 in the Day-Date and cal. 2460 QCL/1 in the Complete Calendar) but built on the same base cal. 2460. Now well over a decade old, the cal. 2460 in found in some of Vacheron Constantin’s priciest watches.

It’s a sophisticated and fairly complex movement, made up of 182 parts in its simplest, time-only variant, about a quarter more than a lower cost movement. Even the stop seconds function (which relies on a lever to touch the balance wheel), is made up of well-finished several levers.

The cal. 2460 is bears the Poincon de Geneve, or Geneva Seal hallmark, which means its decorative finishing is up to scratch. Even the levers for the hack seconds are straight grained on top and bevelled on their edges, as are the teeth of the barrel wheels.

In short, the movements in both the FiftySix Complete Calendar and Day-Date are very, very well executed.

The base model in the collection, the FiftySix Self-Winding, uses a “manufacture”, rather than in-house, movement. Named the cal. 1326, it is based on the Cartier 1904 MC that was introduced in 2012 as Cartier was rapidly building up its watch manufacturing prowess.

Designed by a team led by Carole Forestier, then head of development at Cartier but now in the same role at parent company Richemont’s consolidated movement department, the 1904 MC is a solid, workhorse movement designed to be a upmarket replacement for the ETA 2892. Robustly built and found in watches like the Tank MC, the movement has double barrels as well as an efficient “Magic Rotor” winding mechanism.

But the movement was significantly dressed up for its Vacheron Constantin duty as the cal. 1326, most obviously with a 22k red gold rotor bearing an open-worked Maltese cross. Notably, the edges of the Maltese cross are bevelled by hand, and form one of the most labour intensive and expensive operations of the movement production.

At the same time, the bridges were also reshaped to give them more curved and elegant shapes. The result is a properly upscale looking movement.

The components for the cal. 1326 are produced by ValFleurier, the secretive movement manufacturer owned by Richemont that produces parts and whole movements for many of the group’s brands. Assembly and finishing is then done by Vacheron Constantin, which means the movement is significantly more attractive than any other version of the same calibre. Both the Cartier and Piaget (found inside the Polo S) versions of the movement are less elaborately decorated.

While the movement is as attractively finished as with other watches in the price segment, it is necessarily not decorated to the same degree as the in-house calibres. The differences are mostly minor, like the tumble polishing of the pallet fork bridge and wheels for instance. The anglage on the bridge is done via CNC machining, and not polished subsequently, leaving faint machining marks.

That being said, the FiftySix Self-Winding as a whole is well executed for what it costs. Whether or not an affordably put together watch like this furthers Vacheron Constantin’s brand equity is a question that is important but impossible to answer before some time has passed.

Price and availability 

Available at Vacheron Constantin boutiques and retailers in September 2018, the FiftySix is priced as follows in US and Singapore dollars.

FiftySix Self-Winding steel (ref. 4600E/000A-B442) – US$11,700 or S$17,100

FiftySix Self-Winding 18k rose gold (ref. 4600E/000R-B441) – US$19,400 or S$28,400

FiftySix Complete Calendar steel (ref. 4000E/000A-B439) – US$21,600 or S$31,700

FiftySix Complete Calendar 18k rose gold (ref. 4000E/000R-B438) – US$35,800 or S$52,400

FiftySix Day-Date steel (ref. 4400E/000A-B437) – US$17,400 or S$25,400

FiftySix Day-Date 18k rose gold (ref. 4400E/000R-B436) – US$32,500 or S$47,500

Highly complicated watches are usually unnecessary and often fall flat. But if done properly – and done first, before everyone else – the result can make for a great product. So it is with the A. Lange & Söhne Triple Split.

Definitely one of the best chronographs of SIHH 2018 (the only other contender is the F.P. Journe Monopoussoir Rattrapante), the Triple Split does exactly what the name indicates. The newly developed L132.1 movement records two simultaneously times of up to 12 hours, splitting the seconds, minutes and hours, on three separate registers.

According to Tino Bobe, the watchmaker’s head of manufacturing and one of the key people behind the Double Split, the Triple Split movement is derived from that of the Double Split, but with numerous improvements throughout – from the chronograph levers to the barrel – cumulatively make it a radically different movement.

The goal of the Triple Split development team was to put more into a space of the same size, an approach different yet philosophically similar to what Audemars Piguet did with the Royal Oak RD#2 Perpetual Calendar, which was to build the same complication but in a much smaller space.

Two numbers illustrates Mr Bobe’s point: the Double Split cal. L001.1 is made up of 465 parts, while the L132.1 inside the Triple Split has 567 components, or about a fifth more. And the Triple Split has a 55-hour power reserve, compared to just 38 in the Double Split.

The two movements are almost identical looking from the back, with a mass of finely finished steel levers that explain why Lange is regarded as the maker of the best traditionally constructed chronographs on the market. But the Triple Split is distinguished by one obvious difference: the chronograph bridge is significantly larger, extending upwards to hold the mechanism for the split hours.

Amongst the biggest challenges in the movement’s five year development was a seemingly simple task, moving the power reserve from noon to six o’clock. In the Double Split the power reserve indicator sits at 12 o’clock, for the prosaic reason that the barrel sits just below, meaning that the display is almost directly linked to the barrel.

But to make the point that the Triple Split is triple, and not a measly double, the watch had to have the 12-hour split register take pride of place at the very top of the dial. Consequently the power reserve had to be rerouted under the dial, landing at six o’clock.

The sub-dial layout of the Triple Split actually gives it a more pleasing and balanced aesthetic than the Double Split, with the 12-hour counter and power reserve helping to balance each other.

Visuals aside, the tactile feel of the Triple Split is not obviously discernible from the Double Split (in gold; the platinum version is obviously weightier). Both are 43.2mm in diameter, impressively large but too big to be genuinely easy to wear, while the Triple Split is ever so slightly thicker. The Triple Split stands 15.6mm, while the Double Split is 15.3mm.

Limited to 100 pieces, the Triple Split is only available in white gold, for now. While Lange has not indicated any future versions in other metals, that is almost inevitable, which should give hope to those who prefer a rosier or heavier watch.

Price and availability  

Slated for September 2018 delivery, the Triple Split in white gold (ref. 424.026) is priced at €139,000, including 19% German VAT.