Hublot this week offers new options to its customers in search of a slightly thinner, downsized Big Bang as the Geneva watchmaker launches a 40mm Time Only Big Bang Integral.
Hublot will debut the new 40mm collection in a choice of three metals: yellow gold, titanium or black ceramic. The black ceramic collection is a limited edition of 250 pieces while the yellow gold and titanium lines are unlimited.
Hublot’s new Time Only Big Bang Integral All Black.
You might recall that when the Integral debuted in early 2020 as a flyback chronograph only, it was the first bracelet collection within Big Bang. The integrated bracelet is a solid three-link design that broke Hublot’s long held focus on rubber, leather or fabric bracelets for its best-selling Big Bang Unico collections.
The new watch measures 9.25mm thick, far sleeker than the 13.45mm-thick Big Bang Integral chronograph models. Hublot continues to polish and satin-finish the bracelet links on the new non-chronograph collection to closely match the new satin-finished 40mm case. The new ‘Time Only’ models, which also display the date, retain the skeletonized dial treatment found on the chronograph models. As a result, the date wheel and the five-minute markers become more prominent.
Hublot matches the indexes, hands and date window finishes in yellow gold, titanium or All Black ceramic to match the case. Inside, Hublot fits its automatic caliber HUB1710, which is largely bared on the dial and also visible through the back of the watch.
Prices: $17,800 (titanium), $49,400 (yellow gold) and $19,900 (black ceramic).
Hublot this week also announced six new watches cased in yellow gold. Hublot says the yellow gold debuts “pay tribute to the brand’s preferred material.” We’ll show you more of this yellow gold expansion in future posts, where we’ll also show you more of Hublot’s 2022 debuts.
Grand Seiko celebrates the twentieth anniversary of its first GMT watch and the fifteenth anniversary of its premiere Spring Drive chronograph with two new watches.
Both debuts technically echo ongoing designs within Grand Seiko’s Sport collection, but present themselves with dials created to recall winter scenes in the mountains that surround the Shinshu in central Japan studio where Grand Seiko design and manufactures the watches. Similarly, both watches feature blue dial accents meant to echo the bright blue color of the winter sky in Shinshu.
The new Sport Collection Grand Seiko GMT 20th Anniversary Limited Edition (SBGE275).
One of these new watches, the Sport Collection Grand Seiko GMT 20th Anniversary Limited Edition (SBGE275), is a 44mm steel watch with a large GMT hand that allows the wearer to read a second-time zone while a third time zone can also be displayed using the 24-hour bezel.
The power reserve and date are the only other displays interrupting the dial’s wintry white and blue scene. With Grand Seiko’s generous use of Lumibrite on the bezel, indexes, hour, minute, and GMT hands, all displays remain visible in darkness.
The Sport Collection Grand Seiko Chronograph 15th Anniversary Limited Edition (SBGC247) is the busier of the two new debuts.
The new Sport Collection Grand Seiko Chronograph 15th Anniversary Limited Edition (SBGC247).
Framed by a 43.5mm titanium case, the dial’s icy white coloring serves as a backdrop to three subdials. Grand Seiko protects the much-lauded Spring Drive Chronograph GMT Caliber 9R96 inside this watch with heightened anti-magnetic casing and a fortified titanium case.
Both movements, including the Spring Drive GMT Caliber 9R16 inside the GMT-only model and the Spring Drive Caliber 9R96 inside the chronograph GMT, offer hyper-accurate timing, with accuracy to plus or minus ten seconds per month or 0.5 seconds per day. Both also feature an 18-karat gold Grand Seiko lion emblem on the oscillating weight. (See specifications below for details).
The Grand Seiko chronograph, automatic Spring Drive Caliber 9R96, showing the Grand Seiko lion emblem in 18-karat yellow gold on the oscillating weight.
Look for the Sport Collection Grand Seiko GMT 20th Anniversary Limited Edition (SBGE275, $7,300) in March when Grand Seiko will release it as a limited edition of 1,500. The Sport Collection Grand Seiko Chronograph 15th Anniversary Limited Edition (SBGC247, $11,000) is a limited edition of 700 and will be available in February.
(Specifications: Grand Seiko Spring Drive GMT (SBGE275, a limited edition of 1,500)
Movement: Automatic Grand Seiko Spring Drive GMT Caliber 9R16, accuracy of ±10 seconds per month (±0.5 second per day). Power reserve is 72 hours.
Case: 44mm by 14.9mm stainless steel case and bracelet, three-fold clasp with push button release, dual-curved sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating, see-through screw case back, screw-down crown, water resistance to 200 meters, magnetic resistance of 4,800 A/m.
Dial: Patterned ‘icy’ white.
Bracelet: Steel with three-fold clasp and push button release.
Price: $7,300.
Specifications: Grand Seiko Spring Drive Chronograph GMT (SBGC247, a limited edition of 700)
Movement: Automatic Grand Seiko Spring Drive Chronograph GMT Caliber 9R96, accuracy to ±10 seconds per month (±0.5 second per day), power reserve of 72 hours.
Case: 43.5mm by 16.1mm high-intensity titanium. Dual-curved sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating, see-through screw case back, screw-down crown, water resistance to 100 meters, magnetic resistance to 4,800 A/m.
Dial: Patterned ‘icy’ white.
Bracelet: Titanium with three-fold clasp with push button release. Price: $11,000.
Grand Seiko introduces two new U.S.-exclusive Special Edition timepieces to its Heritage Collection. The new models are extensions within the watchmaker’s Special Edition Sōkō collection introduced last year to celebrate the end of autumn and the sight of the first winter frost.
Grand Seiko says its designers were inspired by the clear blue skies over the Sea of Japan during the early winter months for the dial of this Hi-Beat 36000 model (SBGH295).
And as you might expect, both of the new models feature light blue dials.
The first new watch, the Spring Drive SBGA471, features a light blue vertically textured dial designed to mimic the frozen trunks of bamboo trees of the Arashiyama bamboo forest, according to the watchmaker.
This model, Grand Seiko SBGA471, features an icy blue vertically textured dial inspires by frozen trunks of trees in the Arashiyama bamboo forest.
With its distinctive power reserve indicator, this watch’s dial is framed by Grand Seiko’s 44GS 40mm case (here in titanium), first seen fifty-five years ago and characterized by the watchmaker’s expertly rendered flat and mirror polished surfaces.
The second is the SBGH295, a 40mm steel-cased Hi-Beat 36000 Grand Seiko watch with an escapement that vibrates at 36,000 beats per hour. This watch’s blue dial is framed with a mirrored, multi-sided case inspired by Grand Seiko’s first automatic watch, the 62GS, from 1967. Grand Seiko’s superb Zaratsu polishing and a bezel-free, fairly wide dial opening characterize the case.
Collectors may recognize the blue dial from the Grand Seiko “ice blue” dials introduced on the first U.S. Limited Edition collection in 2018.
Grand Seiko Automatic Spring Drive Caliber 9R65.
The movements
Grand Seiko powers each of the new Sōkō Frost limited editions with specialties of the Grand Seiko house. In the Spring Drive model you’ll find caliber the 9R65, which combines the high torque of a mechanical watch with Spring Drive’s unique integrated circuit control system.
Grand Seiko Hi-Beat 36000 Caliber 9S85.
As noted, Grand Seiko places its 9S85 Hi-Beat caliber inside SBGH295. The movement oscillates at a rate of ten beats per second (36,000 vph) and yet still maintains an impressive power reserve of 55 hours.
Both watches are water resistant to 100 meters, and each is equipped with a matching metal bracelet and a crocodile leather strap with three-fold clasp push button release.
Prices: $6,000 (SBGA471 Spring Drive) and $6,900 (SBGH295 Hi-Beat).
Last year producer and talent scout Swizz Beatz challenged De Bethune to create a “totally different Dream Watch 5.” This week, De Bethune debuted its response to that challenge with a watch worthy of the futuristic Dream Series.
The new De Bethune Dream Watch 5 Tourbillon Season 1 is a spectacular deltoid-shaped, blued-titanium and sapphire wrist rocket regulated by a De Bethune high-velocity tourbillon.
The new De Bethune Dream Watch 5 Tourbillon Season 1 .
The inventive Swiss company, lead by pioneering watchmaker Denis Flageollet, has built on its own Dream Watch legacy by refining its pointedly curved Dream Watch 5 case, first seen in 2014, into a skeletal sculpture that both showcases an open-set dial while also protecting it with two dramatic blued titanium bridges.
As De Bethune points out, there is nothing straight or flat about this latest Dream Watch 5 case, which is composed of seven different sapphire components ingeniously embedded into a polished blue titanium frame.
At the center, gripped by the watch’s titanium exoskeleton, is a three-dimensional orb that indicates the moon phases. Adjacent, and just below the blue bridges, the wearer eyes the hours and minutes directly through a hand-cut cabochon-shaped crystal.
The back of the watch (below) is almost as dramatic, especially since the ultra-clear sapphire back seems to magnifying the beauty of De Bethune’s mirror-polished DB2149 high-speed tourbillon caliber. The 30-second tourbillon oscillates at 36,000 vibrations/hour, set just beneath a slightly blued sapphire window. See specifications below for additional details about this expertly engineered, highly tuned movement.
De Bethune notes that to enhance the interior of the DW5 Episode 1, it collaborates with Swiss engraver Michèle Rothen, who has ‘retouched’ each surface with added micro-detail and greater dimension.
The De Bethune Dream Watch 5 Tourbillon Season 1 is a ten-piece limited edition.
Price: $520,000.
Specifications: De Bethune Dream Watch 5 Tourbillon ‘Season 1’
(Reference DW5TSB, a ten-piece limited edition)
Functions: Hours, minutes, central spherical moon-phase indication, 30-minute indication on the ultra-light silicon and titanium De Bethune tourbillon cage (appearing on the back).
Movement: DB2149 hand-wound, three positions (for winding, spherical moon phase and time setting), titanium balance-wheel with white gold inserts, De Bethune balance-spring with flat terminal curve, silicon escape-wheel, spherical moon-phase display accurate to within one lunar day every 1,112 years, De Bethune ultra-light silicon and titanium 30-second tourbillon, 36,000 vibrations/hour.
Dial: Blued grade-5 titanium aperture frame.
Case: 58mm by 47mm by 17mm tapered hand-polished and blued grade- 5 titanium, open-worked with sapphire blue inserts and hand-engraved motifs, cabochon-cut blue sapphire crown.
Bracelet: Blue canvas/leather with an additional rubber strap, titanium clasp with polished and blued titanium pin buckle.
MB&F this week adds a vibrant blue-green color dial and a new case metal to the lineup of its Legacy Machine Perpetual EVO, which the pioneering independent watchmaker first launched in 2020. Seen initially cased in zirconium with an orange, blue or a black dial plate, the newest edition frames its new dial hue in titanium.
The new MB&F LM Perpetual EVO Titanium.
The Legacy Machine Perpetual EVO built its sporty chassis and new livery around the original GPHG-award-winning Legacy Machine Perpetual from 2015, devised for MB&F by watchmaker Stephen McDonnell.
McDonnell effectively redesigned the traditional perpetual calendar when he built the LM Perpetual in 2015 with a “mechanical processor” (a series of superimposed disks) that takes the default number of days in the month at 28 and then adds the extra days as required by each individual month. He also built in a safety feature that disconnects the pushers during the date changeover to eliminate any risk of damage to the movement when the date is changed.
For the 2020 EVO edition, MB&F added a series of technical upgrades to the watch that effectively toughened its resistance to shock and water. The EVO offers a redesigned, sleeker case, ergonomic double-sprung pushers, an integrated rubber strap, Super-LumiNova, a specially developed ‘FlexRing’ shock-absorbing system, a screw-down crown and 80 meters of water resistance.
MB&F will ship the new LM Perpetual EVO Titanium, with its all new green-blue dial, to its retailers around the world, though expect a few available at the MB&F eShop. Price: $176,000.
The new ‘Time Only’ models, which also display the date, retain the skeletonized dial treatment found on the chronograph models. As a result, the date wheel and the five-minute markers become more prominent.
