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Ulysse Nardin Teams with Shark Researcher

Ulysse Nardin has partnered with Ocearch, a scientific organization that works with researchers and educational institutions to better understand the movement and habits of sharks.

The Le Locle watchmaker has historically manufactured marine chronometers and has even more recently released dive watches symbolized by the shark. The new partnership means Ulysse Nardin will financially back Ocearch’s mission and assist researchers in their work and provide resources to better understand the shark’s role in the ocean’s fragile ecosystem.

Ulysse Nardin U.S. brand president François-Xavier Hotier says he has wanted to align the brand with a nonprofit marine life conservation organization since he started with the watch company in 2018.

Ulysse Nardin U.S. President Francois-Xavier Hotier

“Ocearch’s passion and their commitment to the shark species equaled that of our company’s and I knew Ulysse Nardin could make a positive impact toward their, and truly our, collective mission to save the shark species and therein help balance the ocean’s delicate ecosystem,” he said in a press release.  

“In speaking with François-Xavier Hotier we came to realize, not only our shared passion for the impact of shark-based research but of the importance of doing good work for good,” says Chris Fischer, founder of Ocearch. “We rely on companies like Ulysse Nardin to help raise awareness for our mission and look forward to working with the team behind the scenes and on future research expeditions.”

Ulysse Nardin will support Ocearch on its upcoming expeditions and work together to raise awareness around marine research. The organization is currently planning two expeditions for the end of 2020. The first will take place August 5-20 in Massachusetts and the second from September 3-28 in Nova Scotia.

Recent Ulysse Nardin dive models that pay homage to different shark species include two limited editions, the Diver Chronograph Hammerhead Shark and the Lady Diver Great White. Both are pictured below.

The Ulysse Nardin Diver Chronograph Hammerhead Shark Limited Edition. Hammerhead Shark Limited Edition. The watch is offered with a titanium or rose gold case and with rubber or fabric strap.

 

 

The Ulysse Nardin Lady Diver Great White. The watch has a domed crystal and a concave unidirectional bezel and its dial is designed to look like the granular skin of a great white shark.

 

 

Caseback view of the Ulysse Nardin Lady Diver Great White Limited Edition.
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TAG Heuer Celebrates 160th With Colorful Carrera

TAG Heuer today introduces a second Carrera collector’s edition to mark the Swiss watchmaker’s 160th birthday.

The new TAG Heuer Carrera 160 Years Montreal Limited Edition.

The TAG Heuer Carrera 160 Years Montreal Limited Edition, the new limited edition of 1,000 watches, echoes the brand’s White Heuer Montreal from 1972, complete with that model’s colorful dial marked with then-novel yellow luminescence.

The eye-catching 39mm watch arrives about six months after TAG Heuer started this anniversary year by launching the equally fetching TAG Heuer Carrera 160 Years Silver Dial Limited Edition, which we discussed here.

TAG Heuer says that a now highly collectible White Heuer Montreal, reference 110503W from 1972, inspired the new watch’s retro design. As a result, TAG Heuer has echoed that watch’s red, yellow and blue coloring scheme.

The White Heuer Montreal from 1972.

The new model somewhat replicates the original dial, though in a current Carrera case with right-side crown rather than a cushion case with a left crown, and without the marked pulsimeter and tachymeter references seen on the original. TAG Heuer has replaced those references with a blue and red ruled scale, and replaces the ‘Montreal’ monicker with ‘Carrera.’

However, the new model echoes the original’s use colorful luminescence, which was just being developed at the time. The TAG Heuer Carrera 160 Years Montreal Limited Edition, as a result, features a chronograph minute counter (at 3 o’clock) with three curved lines, each colored with yellow SuperLuminova. The same color is also found on the central minute and hour hands. The central chronograph seconds hand is colored with straight red lacquer.  

The dial itself features three blue subdials (with updated hands) protected by a domed ‘glassbox’ sapphire crystal, inspired by the original.

TAG Heuer’s own Caliber Heuer 02 manufacture chronograph movement powers the tribute watch.  The movement, visible from the sapphire caseback, includes a column wheel and a vertical clutch and boasts an impressive eighty-hour power reserve.

Packaged in a special box, TAG Heuer will package the Carrera 160 Years Montreal Limited Edition in a special gift box and make it available in July at TAG Heuer boutiques and online at www.tagheuer.com. Price: $6,750

 

Specifications: TAG Heuer Carrera 160 Years Montreal Limited Edition

Movement: TAG Heuer Caliber Heuer 02 Automatic manufacture movement with column-wheel chronograph, vertical clutch, power reserve of 80 hours.

Dial: 
Blue, white opaline dial, white flange with 60-second/minute scale and three counters (at 3 o’clock: blue minute chronograph counter with yellow SuperLuminova, at 6 o’clock: blue permanent second indicator, at 9 o’clock: blue hour chronograph counter. 
Rhodium-plated minute and hour hands with yellow SuperLuminova. Red lacquered central hand. 
Black printed logo.

Case: 39mm polished steel, polished steel fixed bezel, domed sapphire crystal, polished steel standard crown and pushers, steel screw-down sapphire caseback with special numbered limited-edition engraving. 
Water-resistant to 100 meters.

Strap: Blue alligator leather with polished steel folding clasp and double safety push buttons.

Price: $6,750

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TAG Heuer Teams With Designer Hiroshi Fujiwara

Japanese designer Hiroshi Fujiwara has teamed with TAG Heuer once again to design a limited edition watch based on TAG Heuer’s sporty Formula 1 model fit with the Caliber Heuer 02 chronograph movement.

The new TAG Heuer X Fragment Design Chronograph Limited Edition.

The new TAG Heuer X Fragment Design Chronograph Limited Edition combines Fujiwara’s streetwear designs with TAG Heuer’s technical expertise and current Formula 1 case, a design based on a cushion-shaped case TAG Heuer used in the late 1960s and 1970s.

The resulting chronograph watch features a less cluttered dial design than those found on the  TAG Heuer Formula 1 models. Fujiwara utilizes a retro-inspired two-subdial layout and then subtly customizes it with red accents and small white lettering and logos.

Fujiwara teamed with TAG Heuer in 2018 to put his designer touch on a Carrera, where TAG Heuer more typically utilizes its advanced in-house Heuer 02 Chronograph movement, most often in a three-subdial layout.  

Fragment influences

Japanese designer Hiroshi Fujiwara, founder of Fragment Design.

The 44m steel TAG Heuer Formula 1 case retains the collection’s black ceramic tachymeter bezel, but replaces standard markers with small red squares, with two squares at the top of the dial in place of the Formula 1’s familiar ‘12’ marker. Just below the two red squares Fujiwara places his Fragment Design logo, with ‘Fragment’ printed on the dial between the 4 and 5 o’clock positions.  

A circular red sapphire crystal window on the caseback displays the automatic column-wheel chronograph movement with a red overlay that also features the dual-lightning logo of Fragment Design, the influential design house Fujiwara founded in 2003.

The new watch arrives with a five-row steel bracelet with a folding clasp. TAG Heuer is engraving each watch with a unique limited-edition number from 1 to 500.

The new TAG Heuer X Fragment Design Chronograph Limited Edition will be available to pre-order from www.tagheuer.com and in select TAG Heuer boutiques before going on sale on July 27. As a limited edition of 500 pieces, and with the Fragment Design collaboration, expect strong demand. Price: $6,150.

 

Specifications: TAG Heuer X Fragment Design Chronograph Limited Edition

Movement: Automatic Caliber Heuer 02 with column-wheel chronograph and vertical clutch, 80-hour power reserve

Case: 44mm polished steel, ceramic black polished tachymeter, fixed bezel, flat sapphire crystal with double anti-reflective treatment, steel screw-down crown, red sapphire screw-down caseback with special engraving, water-resistant to 100 meters

Dial: Black opaline with two counters:

– 3 o’clock: black embossed minute chronograph counter

– 9 o’clock: black embossed hour chronograph counter

Red printed indexes, rhodium-plated hour and minute hands with white SuperLumiNova, red lacquered central hand, white TAG Heuer printed logo, date window at 6 o’clock, “HEUER 02 AUTOMATIC/FRAGMENT” printing

Bracelet: Polished, fine-brushed, five-row steel bracelet, steel butterfly folding clasp with safety push buttons

 

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Citizen Celebrates Titanium Anniversary

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Citizen X-8 Chronometer, the world’s first titanium watch, the Tokyo-based watchmaker unveils the new Satellite Wave GPS F950 Titanium 50th Anniversary Limited Edition.

Citizen’s new Satellite Wave GPS F950 Titanium 50th Anniversary Limited Edition.

The celebratory model builds on the ‘space design’ look of Citizen’s Satellite Wave watches that utilize technology Citizen first developed in 2011. Those models were also housed in titanium and featured the then-revolutionary satellite connection that assured highly accurate GPS-based timekeeping that would update to any location on earth.

All these Satellite Wave models, which Citizen updates with faster, more efficient modules regularly, are powered by Citizen’s battery-free Eco-Drive technology. Citizen’s newest movement in this range is the Citizen GPS F950, which powers this new watch.  

Space theme

As with nearly all the Satellite Wave models, Citizen’s new Satellite Wave GPS F950 Titanium 50th Anniversary Limited Edition features a round, multi-layered case with an angular-link bracelet nicely integrated into the case.

Here, Citizen darkens the 47.5mm Super Titanium case, the six-level dial and the bracelet, all blackened to convey what Citizen calls the “endless depths of outer space.”

With decades of research into titanium case technology, Citizen supplies its own surface hardening, which it calls Duratect 2 DLC, to the case of the new watch, while accenting the inner bezel with a rose-gold-like Duratect Sakura Pink titanium (which also coats the caseback.)

Citizen will sell its Satellite Wave GPS F950 Titanium 50th Anniversary Limited Model, a 550-piece limited edition, this December in the U.S. exclusively on its website. Price: $5,000

Three in titanium  

Ahead of the anniversary model described above, Citizen this August will also release a new titanium collection of three watches called Citizen Super Titanium Armor.

Designed to recall the look of high-tech armoring, the collection includes a 44mm chronograph watch (above) in two styles (both with ‘hidden’ pushers) and a 41mm time-only model with a crown at 4 o’clock.

All are light-powered, using Citizen’s own Eco-Drive technology, and all feature integrated Super Titanium cases and bracelets. Prices: $650 (chronograph) and $550.

 

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Ball Watch Races With a New Chronograph

Ball Watch this week combines its well-known dial illumination and solid crown protector with a racing tachymeter to create the Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph, the brand’s first automotive racing watch in years.

The new Ball Watch Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph

While Ball has long focused on designing watches with functions requested by explorers, divers, travelers and adventurers, the historical U.S. brand (now based in Switzerland) now seeks to reach automobile racing enthusiasts with this new chronograph collection. Ball Watch has offered other watches with tachymeters in years past, including the Engineer Master II Slide Chronograph and two Fireman Storm Chaser models, but this debut is the first in recent years specifically designed with such a bezel.  

For Ball, adding a speed-monitoring tachymeter scale (here, in black ceramic) to the bezel of a chronograph is just a start. The remaining features Ball adds to the three-watch collection echo the brand’s attention to the needs of collectors who plan to wear their watch amid adverse conditions.

Ball Watch Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph, showing illumination.

Shock resistance

These features include a COSC-certified, chronometer-rated automatic movement (Ball’s Caliber RR1401, an upgraded and customized ETA Valjoux 7750), resistance to shocks of up to 7,500 g and anti-magnetic protection rated to 4,800 A/m.

That Ball crown protector (left), standard on the watches throughout the Ball Engineer Hydrocarbon collection, screws into the case once the owner sets the time on the watch. After the wearer clasps the patented steel protector over the crown, it won’t budge or allow dust or dirt to contamination the case interior.  

And as noted, Ball’s proprietary H3 gas tube illumination (colored green on the dial and hands and yellow at 12 o’clock) means that the time – and the timing – remains visible day or night. 

Three dials

Ball makes the new Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph with a 42mm diameter stainless steel case with a black ceramic bezel and a choice of a black, blue or white dial.

Ball then finishes the watch with a stainless-steel brushed and polished bracelet with a folding clasp. Price: $3,599.

 

SPECIFICATIONS: Ball Watch Engineer Hydrocarbon Racer Chronograph

Movement: Automatic caliber BALL RR1401-C (ETA-7750-based), chronometer-certified COSC,

7,500Gs shock resistance, 100-meters of water resistance, anti-magnetic to 4,800 A/m

Functions: Chronograph with accumulated measurement up to 45 minutes, tachymeter, hours, minutes, subsidiary seconds and date

Dial: Blue, silver or black with 15 micro gas tubes on hour and minute hands and dial for night reading capability

Case: 42mm by 15.2mm stainless steel with black ceramic bezel, anti-reflective sapphire crystal, patented crown protection system

Bracelet: Tapered stainless steel with patented folding buckle and extension system

Price: $3,599

 

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