For 2026, Rolex had a pretty big year at Watches and Wonders Geneva. There was, of course, the much-debated high-end Rolesium and enamel Daytona, the revamped Yacht-Master II, or a new gold alloy named Jubilee gold for the Day-Date. Then, the Crown publicly showed the special edition steel and gold Oyster Perpetual 100th Anniversary. You thought […]
Hamilton, once one of the largest American watchmakers, has a long tradition of accessible, robust field watches and military-inspired timepieces, a style that’s been crucial for the brand with its Khaki Field Collection. While most of the models are modelled after the mid-20th-century Hamilton Hacked watches, some editions took the brief at face value, while some, […]
This week on The Business of Watches, a breaking news story, of sorts. Our friends at Worn & Wound have acquired Lorier Watches. It's a story of success for the New York-based boutique brand that started way back in 2017 with a mission to make vintage-inspired watches, designed to be worn every day, at an approachable price. In a way, it's a tale of too much success.Lorier co-founders, the husband and wife team Lauren Ortega and Lorenzo Ortega, struggled with the rapid growth of the small
Haim Watch Company, a Chicago-based microbrand, marked its fifth anniversary in 2025 by introducing an intriguing new timepiece called the Annum. I first saw the watch last fall at the WindUp Watch Fair in New York City, where the brand's founder, M. Zakir Miah, brought along a prototype that immediately caught my attention. Visitors at the event received a sneak peek of the Annum alongside previous creations like the Viajero worldtimer, a model I reviewed last year. Since that initial preview
Over the past year, Seiko has refined its Prospex 1968 Heritage Diver’s GMT with several editions, including the 60th Anniversary SPB509 and the SPB534 Seashadow. Following the white-dialled SPB519, the latest additions, the non-limited references HBC001 and HBC002 in classic black or green colourways, offer the familiar design of the 1968 Heritage Diver’s GMT with […]
Introduced in 1996 with the reference 5035, Patek Philippe’s Annual Calendar was neither a simplified perpetual calendar nor an upgraded complete calendar, but an entirely new mechanism protected by a patent; we explained the full story of its creation and evolution in this article here. By automatically distinguishing between months with 30 and 31 days, […]
Travel has always been at the heart of Louis Vuitton, and the Escales Autour du Monde collection, like all Escale watches, has a great poetic sound to it. The name, which translates as “Stopovers Around the World,” recalls Francisca Mattéoli’s celebrated book documenting Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s remarkable collection of hotel labels gathered during his travels; there’s […]
Earlier today, we reported the increase in sales indicated by the Swatch Group (+8.5% at constant rate), which follows almost identical signs reported by Richemont about a week ago (+8% for Specialist Watchmakers and +20% in total, with a growth mostly driven by Jewellery brands). Now, it’s time for the Federation of the Swiss Watch […]
Two months ago, I spent a Friday lunch eating a sandwich called the Crazy Poulet at Notos Bar Restaurant in Le Sentier with Mark Schmid, who is a sort of jack-of-all-trades in the marketing and communications department at Audemars Piguet. Schmid has quickly become someone I'd consider a friend, whom I appreciate for our candid conversations, his willingness (and frequency) to correct my confusion between l'accent aigu and l'accent grave in articles, and, more recently, his gastronomic suggest
Following two difficult consecutive years, with sales down 12% in 2024 and 7% in 2025, the Swatch Group, the Swiss watchmaking giant owner of brands such as Omega, Breguet, Longines, and Tissot, is now back to growth. Indeed, as indicated by its half-year 2026 report, Swatch Group recorded “a strong increase in sales, up +8.5% […]
Chopard, the Official Timekeeper and World Sponsor of the famous Italian endurance rally since 1988, has released countless chronographs inspired by the Mille Miglia race, its drivers and its iconic route. The Raticosa Pass has already been honoured once before, with a limited-edition series in 2021, and this 2026 Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph Raticosa pays […]
RGM Watch Company has never been a brand to chase trends or pop culture. Founded in 1992 by Roland G. Murphy in Pennsylvania, the brand has built its reputation on traditional watchmaking, producing around 400 watches annually while preserving crafts such as engine turning, movement decoration, and even in-house calibre production. Its latest release, however, […]
Another collaborative project has just launched, and one that is certainly not meant to be conservative. On one side is young indie brand Toledano & Chan, founded by Phil Toledano and Alfred Chan, and focused on bridging conceptual art, brutalist architecture and watchmaking, creating sculptural watches with a design like no other. On the other […]
What We KnowBreitling's Top Time has long been a unique outlier in the Swiss brand's line-up. A chronograph model with a square (ish) cushion case launched in 1964, it aimed to attract a new crop of younger consumers with its hipster design. The Top Time soon made it onto the wrist of no less an icon than James Bond in the 1965 film adaptation of Ian Fleming's Thunderball, which saw Sean Connery's 007 sport the watch while driving an elegant and refined British sports car, the Aston Martin DB
Twelve warriors gather around the table once again, but this time, Camelot gives way to Edo Castle. Roger Dubuis has a knack for creating watches that are equal parts human imagination and great craftsmanship, the kind you can spend hours staring at, whether they call upon dragons, knights, or are high complications that look like […]
When Vacheron Constantin announced the original Twin-Beat at SIHH in 2019, I wasn't in the watch space in the same way I am now. I was also focused on a much different price point—the one I shop in, not the one that I've since become fascinated by. So I missed it. A lot of people did, it seems. I don't think this watch, as interesting as it is/was as a first release, was made in particularly large numbers, and for over a year, I heard rumblings about the eventual return of the Twin-Beat. Well,
Stone dials have long held a special place in fine watchmaking. No two are ever alike, each preserving colours, textures and patterns formed over millions of years. For Gerald Charles, working with stone means embracing a challenge. The Masterlink is anything but round, and its asymmetrical silhouette leaves almost no margin for error. See how […]
It’s common for brands to look back for inspiration for future releases, and some put a lot of effort into it. It’s not just about taking the shape of an hour marker or a hand and putting it into an entirely new design. No, it’s more than that, as multiple brands revive past designs almost […]
Many don’t realise just how complicated casebacks have become. Whether they’re contributing to high water resistance, displaying the movement or becoming part of the case itself, casebacks aren’t simply covers snapped on the back (although those do exist, of course). There are several ways to attach them to the case, and each method has a […]
If you thought the legendary McLaren F1 was the company’s first road car, I can’t really blame you. While technically it is, as the F1 was the very first McLaren car that actually entered production, in reality, it’s predated by the M6 GT, a road-legal sports car envisioned by company founder Bruce McLaren. With inspiration […]