If I said ‘Italian watch brand’, the first name that came to mind would undoubtedly be Panerai, rather than Venezianico. The grand old watchmaker has been producing their distinctive, oversized military pieces since before World War II, and put Florence on the map when it comes to a very specific breed of timepiece. But where Panerai has moved from Florence to Switzerland, Venezianico is a new Italian watchmaker on the block, and one that call’s a different city home and inspiration: Venice. From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, Venice was one of the most important cities in the world ..read more

Aura Watches Steel Skeleton 001, £279 Aura Watches are an American brand that bring impressive value to their watches. The standard Aura Date 001 is equipped with a Seiko NH35A automatic movement for just £239. This is the Steel Skeleton 001, featuring the skeletonised Hangzhou 7500A with 80-hour power reserve for £279. In terms of style, the industrial influences of Gerald Genta are readily apparent. It has a porthole shaped bezel, decorative screws and an integrated bracelet. You could certainly call it an homage, but it’s executed very well and that value makes it all worthwhile. Available ..read more

To put things painfully simply, a minute repeater is a wrist and pocket watch chiming complication that audibly repeats the hours, quarters, and minutes. As with many a complication par excellence, the origins of this concept trace back to early bell towers operated manually and later via mechanisms to signal religious events. But the first examples of minute repeaters, as we know them today, stem from the mid-18th century. Celebrated watchmaker A.L. Breguet (because of course it was) devised a mechanism using twin hammers to strike two coiled wire gongs that produce distinct tones. The gong ..read more

The big news this month was of course Watches & Wonders, but despite Geneva’s Palexpo playing court to watchmaking royalty both accessible and prestige, there was plenty more going on in elsewhere in the city. After all, not every watchmaker is part of a big group. So, to avoid cool timepieces being subsumed into the hype of Watches and Wonders, here are ten of the coolest releases you might have missed from last Geneva Watch Week. Space One Tellurium Following on from the success of the space-age ( and sold out) Jumping Hour Space One launched the futuristic Tellurium. Featuring a plan ..read more

Quartz is a term imbued with many connotations, from 1970s market-imploding Bond villainy to a £50 Timex. A vast majority of small Swiss brands disappeared during the Quartz Crisis of the early 1970s, and it has taken the industry close to half a century to claw back market shares. But even with the market’s intense focus on small-cased vintage dive watches and Swiss craftsmanship, the tide has turned. Even haute horology caters to the tempting affair of non-mechanical power. While closing in on the Big Swiss in the luxury market, Grand Seiko offers lab-grown quartz power visible under a sap ..read more

We throw around a lot of different horological numbers and watch specifications; it’s kind of our thing: case sizes, complications, and all the good stuff in life. But there’s one number we’ll often gloss over that perhaps we shouldn’t, a number that’s every bit as fundamental to the chronometric performance of a timepiece as its hands. I’m of course talking watches and movement frequency. What is frequency in a watch movement? If you’ve ever glanced at the specs of a watch and seen some absurd number rendered in vph/bph (vibrations per hour/beats per hour) or a much smaller number in the sa ..read more

I honestly had no idea but apparently there are 100 days (slightly under by the time you read this) until the Olympics kick off in Paris. The reason I know this now? Omega has taken the opportunity of the countdown to release a new Speedmaster Chronoscope Paris 2024 edition, draped in the colours of the competition. Omega has been the official timekeeper of the Olympics since 1932, moving from highly accurate stopwatches all the way through to cutting-edge tech for timing down to the millionth of a second. When every second counts, they’re the ones doing the counting. But just as enduring as ..read more

You’ll rarely find me writing these type of articles, because honestly who wants to read the wish list of some watch nerd with questionable taste. But you know what, this year I’ve decided to buck the trend. If you’re going to own a watch news platform you might as well inflict your opinions on others. So to go alongside the slew of great timepieces we’ve already covered, here are some of my personal favourite releases from Watches & Wonders 2024. After a week of traipsing the hallowed halls of the Palexpo searching for a good coffee, trying to explain to our social media apprentice that ..read more

Daniel Roth is one of the legendary independent watchmakers, right up there with George Daniels, François-Paul Journe and Philippe Dufour. He earned his stripes at Audemars Piguet where he learned to fine-tune ultra-thin movements before becoming an integral part in the revival of Breguet. In 1988 he set out to create his own, eponymous brand where he could explore his own concepts and ideas, it was the closest thing to an overnight sensation that you get in horology. Now, almost four decades after its founding, the Daniel Roth name is back on everyone’s lips, as the brand have been revived ..read more

Lorca Model No. 1 GMT Somewhere along the line, GMTs lost that glamour innate to the golden age of air travel, the glory days of Pan Am and the like. Now it’s just a raft of GMT-Master II imitators. Which is why it’s great to see something like the Model No. 1 GMT, Lorca’s first watch. Retro white on black crosshair dial (or reversed with silver) with slim, elongated indexes, it reads like a refined pilots’ watch, as it should. The same goes for the fixed bezel, which rather than being split between two colours, consists of engraved, black-filled numbers in steel. The result is a streamlined ..read more