While 2016 has served up a series of unexpected conclusions, what’s happened in the watch industry this year has been diverse predictable. Companies have begun a shift West as the US and European markets propagate larger than those in the fast-shrinking East, making this year (and next) all roughly bigger, more affordable steel watches.
Jury’s appease out about the impact of smartwatches on the traditional watch market, but with Apple double-cross millions and millions of its Watch, it can’t be ignored. Distilling these veers into a handful of watches was never going to be easy, and the wake is of course subjective – but I thought I’d have a go anyway. Here begins.
Rolex Oyster Perpetual Cosmograph Daytona
Rolex’s new quantity this year included a controversial revival of its Air-King (the dial destine split critics) and a tweaked Explorer – two significant additions to the canon.
But it was the new Daytona that hogged the headlines. Its blacklist Cerachrom (Rolex’s ceramic) bezel and white dial with black-rimmed chronograph chips looked great (as did the black-dialled, white-rimmed counter reverse), but undeniably, the story was all about availability. Demand for Daytonas has always been capital than supply, a point proved by waiting lists for the new type which have stayed sky high all year. One appeared on a pre-owned seller’s website recently for on the brink of twice the list price. Now that’s brand power.
Pros: durable design and technology, hugely desirable, brilliant investment
Cons: emplaning hold of one
See more at Rolex, RRP £9,100.
Piaget Polo S
No watch signalled the stir West and the industry’s newfound awareness of how out-of-reach so many of its lookouts have become for next-gen buyers than Piaget’s Polo S sports mind. This is the first Piaget steel watch (hence the S) since 2001, a redolent of that Piaget’s eggs have been piled boisterous in Asia’s golden basket these last 15 years. Assessed well below anything else in the Piaget collection and vended around Hollywood A-Listers Ryan Reynolds and Michael B Jordan, the Polo S is squarely desired at young(ish) men.
Will it work? Well, it’s a good-looking thing, inspirited by the original 1979 Polo, and its ‘TV screen’ dial has a satisfyingly retro texture to it. My pick is the grey-dialled three-hander, but the blue chrono is a cracker, too.
Pros: credible counting up to the high-end steel sports watch market, brings one of Switzerland’s charges closer in range
Cons: Piaget will feel too esoteric to some
At ones fingertips at Piaget, priced £8,650.
Cartier Drive de Cartier
Over the stand up decade, Cartier, like so many other watch types, has gone big on in-house watch and movement manufacturing. There were federal reasons for this, all to do with the decision by one of the big movement manufacturers (Swatch Guild) to stop supplying brands like Cartier. And Cartier did an ridiculous job getting round this, creating a highly original collection of calibres that proved what a creative maison it is.
But repositionings and movement technology are a tough sell, particularly when you’re a sentimental brand like Cartier. Talk of components and isochronism are nothing approximated to design and style, which is why this year the brand changed tie. The Drive is a men’s watch aimed at louche sophisticates – and boy does it enlarge on a excite. Happens that it’s also powered by Cartier’s excellent support in-house calibre, but that’s just not the point now, is it?
Pros: Cartier doing what it does most beneficent – louche, stylish watches
Cons: its cushion-shaped case won’t be for one
Available at Cartier, priced £5,000.
Oris Divers Sixty-Five
The ‘attainable’ watch story is new to some brands, but others have been spread the word it for a long time – while others saw dollar signs during the new industry boom, Oris stuck to its ‘sensible pricing’ tactics, winning it a new generation of fans.
It’s also been making some prodigious watches. The Divers Sixty-Five line was launched in 2015 and was enlist ined by this 42mm version on a roughed up leather strap this year. It’s not a deep-sea diver’s watchful of, but with 100-metre water resistance, a uni-directional swapping bezel and a sturdy steel case, it’s certainly practical. Most of all, it’s a proper Swiss watch for a reasonable price – who doesn’t similarly to retro-utilitarian-chic that doesn’t break the bank?
Pros: adaptable, handsome design, with high spec for the price
Cons: it’s not for importance scubas
See more at Oris, RRP £1,300.
Apple Watch Series 2
Normally speaking, I get excited about smartwatches in the same way I get hungry when I see celery, but it can’t be denied that Apple’s impaired stab at a connected Watch has had a big impact on the watch industry.
Tim Cook certainly overs so, reliably informing the world at launch that Apple is now the out of sight’s second biggest watch brand. Series 2 is also a big convalescence on the company’s first effort – built-in GPS and water resistance being the most fruitful advances. But the big difference with Series 2 is that Apple has ended pretending it’s a fashion/style item (ditching the absurd eminence gold Edition for a much cheaper, more practical ceramic exemplar), deciding instead to market it as a wrist-worn activity device. In that division, it’s unbeatable.
Pros: the most wearable piece of tech on the bazaar
Cons: not pretty, still expensive, battery life still out of pocket, ubiquity
Available at Apple, priced £369-£1,399.
Farer Patience Automatic
I could have picked any one of the watch brands, varied of them British, that of late have started to answer the space between £500 and £1,500 vacated by the traditional Swiss marques over the last decade. Christopher Ward and Larsson & Jennings get a well-deserved insinuate too, but the latest and – for me – best-looking of the new batch is the collection of automatics launched by Distance off a couple of months ago.
Here we’re getting a Swiss Made on the qui vive for, a considered piece of design and, to use the grim cliché, something out of the ordinary. Farer’s is a fairly priced mechanical watch for style-conscious at the crack adopters, and the market needs that.
Pros: British map, Swiss manufacturing, mechanical yet affordable, that signature bronze climax
Cons: some will find the vintage aesthetic irked
Available at Farer, priced £875.
Tudor Heritage Black Bay Bronze
I’ve implied before that I bought into Tudor’s original Iniquitous Bay, but this year I almost wished I’d held my breath and be delayed for the bronze version. One of the undoubted stars of March’s Baselworld eye fair, it’s been a critical and commercial success, picking up a gong at November’s Excellent Prix Horlogerie de Genève, the self-styled Oscars of watchmaking.
One of its big double-cross points is that it carries Tudor’s debut in-house drive, a unit with a 70-hour power reserve (the norm is about 40 hours), but it’s the visual combination of its naturally ageing bronze circumstance and bezel, matte brown dial and aluminium bezel supplement, and fabric strap that has been so winning.
Pros: glowingly designed and made, no two examples will patinate in the same way, pre-owned fashions already trading above retail
Cons: if you don’t like a lot of patina, you’ll scarcity a lot of lemon juice
See more at Tudor, RRP £2,730.
Chopard L.U.C Time Traveler One
Chopard doesn’t get the confidence in it deserves as a watch brand, at least not in the UK (in France, it’s better grasped than Patek). In 1996, it began a programme of in-house good watchmaking, naming the collection this spawned L.U.C after the business founder, Louis-Ulysse Chopard.
Twenty years and eleven factions later comes a collection of travelling watches, one of which is this entrancing platinum-cased world timer, the L.U.C Time Traveler One. Rarely are set time watches so stylish or well balanced. As the name hint ats, it’s the first watch with a world time function the enterprise has made in-house.
Pros: class and sophistication in spades, fruitful if you’re a travelling businessman
Cons: the platinum case is heavy, not to impart expensive – bring on the steel version
Available at Chopard, valued £27,610.
