Tag

automatic watch

Browsing
The Watches

Seiko Teams with Rowing Blazers for Second Collection

Seiko reprises its collaboration with clothing brand Rowing Blazers with a new 40mm steel-cased collection featuring eye-catching orange, blue, green, and black dials, each sold with a steel bracelet and a specially designed nylon strap.

One of the four new Rowing Blazers x Seiko 5 Sports series.

The latest Rowing Blazers x Seiko 5 Sports series, designed by Rowing Blazers founder Jack Carlson and vintage watch expert Eric Wind in partnership with Seiko, features four different references with four vintage-inspired dials.

More specifically, the four new Rowing Blazers x Seiko 5 Sports models include: SRPJ57 (orange dial with an additional green and white nylon strap); SRPJ59 (lime dial with an additional purple and black strap); SRPJ61 (sky blue dial with an additional crimson and yellow strap); and SRPJ63 (black dial with hour markers in the colors of the brand’s signature “croquet stripe” with an additional matching strap).

Each limited edition model (of 888 pieces) also includes a crown emblazoned with the Rowing Blazers logo and a caseback featuring the brand’s skeleton “Tempus Fugit” (“Time Flies”) motif.

Each with also will arrive in a presentation box.

Wind explains that he wanted to design a new collection that reflected the spirit of Jack Carlson’s own vintage 1970 Seiko 6106-7107 dive model with a bright orange dial. “We kept the now-iconic ‘candy cane’ second hand and ‘Tempus Fugit’ case back from the first Rowing Blazers x Seiko collaboration,” he adds.

Each watch measures 40mm diameter and if fit with Seiko’s automatic Caliber 4R36 with 41 hours of power reserve. Each dial offers and day and date calendars with days that can be changed between English and Japanese.

The Rowing Blazers x Seiko 5 Sports series will be available online and at the new Rowing Blazers New York boutique located at 8 Rivington at 11 am today (October 28th). 

Price: $495.  

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Victorinox Hikes the Alps

Alpine adventure inspired Victorinox as it designed its new Journey 1884 collection of 43mm steel-cased quartz and automatic watches.

An automatic model from the new Victorinox Journey 1884 collection.

The new collection, which includes two automatic models and five sporty quartz watches, features watches with blue or black dials and hands and colors that reference outdoor activities common just outside the doors of the Victorinox facilities in Delémont, Switzerland.

 

For example, the dials on the quartz models are finished to replicate a rocky hiking path.

The hands on all the watches replicate the signs seen while on those paths in Switzerland, while the counterweight of the seconds hands echo the shape of the familiar Swiss Army Knife, a product for which Victorinox is well known. Even the markers at 3 and 9 recall a pocket knife shape.

Victorinox differentiates the quartz models from the automatic models beyond the two movement types. The quartz models are sportier, with aluminum-inlay unidirectional rotating bezels, a black rubber strap option and its red seconds hand and red logo.

One quartz model is offered in a black PVD steel case with a matching bracelet (pictured above). The automatic models both feature ceramic-inlay unidirectional rotating bezels, yellow accents and a yellow seconds hand.

An automatic model from the Victorinox Journey 1884 collection, pictured with a genuine wood strap.

All models in the Journey 1884 collection are ISO certified for shock and water resistance (rated to 200 meters). Victorinox offers quick strap change options with all models allowing the wearer to change from strap to steel bracelet without tools. One particularly interesting strap option (offered on the blue-dialed automatic model) is made of patterned wood.

Victorinox notes that all its watch case components are made of stainless steel 316L that use a minimum of fifty percent up to ninety percent of recycled steel. The company also utilizes numerous recycling and energy efficiency system throughout its Delémont production facility.

Prices: $575 to $1,150.

 

Specifications: Victorinox Journey 1884

  • 43mm recycled stainless steel case (black PVD on selected model), manufactured in Delémont, Switzerland
  • Scratch-resistant and anti-reflective sapphire crystal
  • Water-resistant to 200 m (20 ATM / 660 ft)
  • Unidirectional rotating bezel with inlay in aluminum on quartz models and ceramic on automatic models 
  • Screw-in case back, with exhibition crystal on automatic models 
  • Protected screw-down crown

Dial and strap:

  • Swiss Super-LumiNova on hands, number, indexes and dot on bezel
  • Date calendar at 6 o’clock
  • Three-dimensional dial featuring military time
  • Genuine rubber, leather or wood strap and stainless steel bracelet
  • All straps/bracelet are tool free changeable

Movements:

  • Ronda 715 Swiss-made quartz movement with battery end-of-life indication
  • Selitta SW200-1 Swiss-made automatic movement with 38 hours power reserve

Special functions

  • ISO 764 certified antimagnetic protection for all quartz models
  • ISO 1413 certified shock resistance on all models (quartz and automatic)
  • ISO 22810 certified water resistance up to 200 meters / 20 ATM

Prices: $575 to $1,150.

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

Reservoir Hydrosphere Reflects Mayan Beauty

Reservoir’s unusual Hydrosphere dive watch gets a new look this month as the Paris-based independent watchmaker launches the Hydrosphere Cenote, a lushly colored tribute to Mayan undersea caves.

The new Reservoir Hydrosphere Cenote.

Since its debut several years ago, the Hydrosphere’s unusual retrograde minute display and jumping hour module set it apart from traditional dive models while still upholding a diver’s need for highly legible dive timing, unidirectional bezel, helium valve and a strong 250 meters of water resistance.

Reservoir colors the Hydrosphere Cenote with a green dial with sun ray finishes that echo the shades of its namesake locale. Formed as calcareous rocks collapsed, the Cenote is lit as sunlight entering the caves create and reveal bright color variations ranging from turquoise to azure blue, green and yellow.

Framing the colors, the watch’s 45mm bronze case and a ceramic bezel offer double graduation for reading dive-stop times. Three functions are visible: the jumping hour, the retrograde minute and the power reserve, all powered by Caliber RSV-240, composed of a proprietary, patented module of 113 parts on a Swiss-made manufacture movement built from a La Joux-Perret G100 base.

Price: $4,600.

by
Keep Reading
The Watches

TAG Heuer and Nintendo Launch Two Mario Kart Formula 1 Watches

TAG Heuer teams once again with Nintendo to launch two Formula 1 X Mario Kart Limited Editions, each filled with fun references to the racing game series.

The TAG Heuer Formula 1 X Mario Kart Limited Edition Chronograph.

One model, a chronograph, is a 44-mm steel model with its Mario Kart logo clearly inscribed on its black polished ceramic tachymeter bezel. TAG Heuer has etched Mario’s M symbol on the crown while the Mario Kart logo is engraved on the screwed-down case back where, nearby, you’ll find an outline of Mario in a racecar.

The game’s hero also pops up on the chronograph’s checkered dial within the permanent seconds indicator at 9 o’clock, which is also circled in the same Mario-red hue. The same color can be also seen on the lacquered central hand, hour chronograph counter hand and 60-second or minute scale on the flange. 

For added humor, TAG Heuer replaces the date display with ongoing appearances by Mario Kart items such as Bullet Bill, the Banana and others.

Inside TAG Heuer fits its automatic Caliber 16 movement. This TAG Heuer Formula 1 X Mario Kart Limited Edition (Chronograph) is limited to 3,000 pieces.

Tourbillon Chronograph 

At the high end, TAG Heuer’s Formula 1 X Mario Kart Limited Edition Chronograph Tourbillon, limited to 250 pieces, showcases Mario’s world in more technical spaces.

TAG Heuer’s Formula 1 X Mario Kart Limited Edition Chronograph Tourbillon

A trio of Mario Kart characters rotate on the COSC-certified Calibre Heuer 02T tourbillon cage, which showcases Mario in his kart, the Spiny Shell and Bullet Bill.

Cased in 45mm titanium, the skeletonized chronograph tourbillon features a black polished ceramic bezel with a tachymeter scale and the Mario Kart logo. Red lacquer colors the 2 o’clock pusher and crown while the M symbol tops the crown.

Just as notable here is the pattern of red lines that frame the dial’s cutouts. At the top of the dial, TAG Heuer adds a gearwheel designed to echo the shape of racecar tire rims.

Mario dominates the back of the watch as well. A screwed-down titanium caseback is fit with sapphire glass emblazoned with the Mario Kart logo. Through the sapphire you’ll see the movement decorated with a trio of Mario Kart characters. I particularly like the Mario-red column wheel.

TAG Heuer attaches a black calf leather strap with contrasting red stitching and lining and a custom embossed pattern to both watches. The steel or titanium folding buckle is engraved with the M symbol.

Prices: $4,300 (Chronograph) and $25,600 (tourbillon chronograph). 

by
Keep Reading
Alpina

Alpina Dives into Green-Dialed Seastrong

Alpina presents the Seastrong Diver 300 Heritage in a new dark green dial paired with a color coordinated green rubber strap. Measuring 42mm in diameter and water-resistant to 300 meters, the watch’s two-piece stainless steel case mounts two screw-down crowns; one for time setting and winding, the other for rotating the inner rotating rehaute specifically for timing a dive – or any other event up to a one-hour limit.

The new Alpina Seastrong Diver 300 Heritage.

This retro-inspired design revisits the brand’s Super Compressor 10 Seastrong dive watch, first introduced in 1969. While dive watches have long tended to have neon bright yellows and safety orange dials, Alpina dove head-first into the current trend for green colors with this quite dark seaweed-green dial and British racing green strap. Bold hands are luminous, as are the indices on the inner bezel.

As with external bezels, diver down times are shown with by Seastrong’s internal black rehaut, which can be adjusted using the upper crown positioned at the two o’clock mark. Unlike most internal bezels, the Seatrong’s can be rotated in either direction before being locked in place by screwing the extra crown down.

The stainless steel case is polished and brushed on the sides with a solid steel case back engraved with Alpina’s namesake Alps as well as a trident as a nod to the nautical nature of the watch. Inside is the Sellita-based AL 520 automatic winding movement beating at 28,800 with 38 hours of power reserve. Price: $1,695.

by
Keep Reading