2022: The five watches I've fallen in love with
What's wrong with having multiple partners, anyway?
In terms of watches, 2022 has been a silly year. As silly as a silly sausage on the Isles of Scilly. I’ve bought more watches than I should have done and made a fair few mistakes along the way.
If I could sum it up in three words, it would be: TOO. MANY. WATCHES. So much so that 2023 is actually going to start with a Very Big Sale of a few pieces that - as amazing as they are - just deserve a better home than I can give them.
What I do know, though, is that five watches stole my heart this year. They all caught my eye, won my affections and found their way into my home and onto my wrist. Now, no matter what, they’re here to stay. And, like five competing lovers, they’ll have to learn to live together in harmony. Let me introduce you to them and explain why I’m a firm believer in watch polygamy…
Lover #1. Fears Brunswick in salmon
The elegantly understated British lover
Look up ‘class’, ‘elegance’ and ‘understatement’ in the dictionary and…actually, don’t. Stay here and I’ll just show you a picture of the Fears Brunswick.
Fears is a Bristol-based watchmaker headed up by Nicholas Bowman-Scargill, the sixth generation of the Fear watchmaking family and the fourth managing director. Despite Fears being a victim of the ‘quartz crisis’, Nicholas revived the brand a few years back and started making ‘elegantly understated’ watches. And, by Jiminy, he does a grand job.
I loved the Brunswick the moment I saw it. The cushion case shape is classically beautiful. The salmon dial is a mix of copper and gold, brushed very finely to achieve a rich, shining finish. And the numerals are diamond polished, sand-blasted and coated in anthracite - then hand applied, giving the dial an amazing depth and relief that just blows me away every time I look at it.
Some brands talk a good game when it comes to quality, design and attention to detail. Fears live it. For my money, there’s no better-looking watch on the market.
Lover #2. IWC Top Gun Ceratanium Double Chronograph
The rock-solid beefcake with a complicated side
This is a special watch. And it’s as rare and as special as a dog’s egg. I first caught sight of it across a crowded room, looking all dusky and sultry in a glass display cabinet. The setting was an IWC event at Watches of Switzerland on Regent Street, where they’d gathered together some incredible pieces from the IWC museum and archives. Elegant and knowledgeable people were quaffing Champagne and sharing stories. Meanwhile, I was drooling on the glass and staring at this black-and-charcoal stealthy stunner.
Two things make it remarkable:
It’s made of magic. Well, Ceratanium, which is a proprietary IWC material. It starts life as a metal alloy which is heated to a bazillion degrees for a specific amount of time, which turns it into a material with the lightness and strength of titanium and the hardness of ceramic. It also turns it black - it’s not painted or treated, but naturally that colour. It’s magic.
It’s clever. It’s a Double Chronograph, or ‘split seconds’ chronograph, or ‘rattrapante’. This means it has two seconds hands, one hidden under the other. Thanks to another button on the side, you can ‘split’ these hands at any time, stopping the first one and keeping the second one running. Then, when you press the button again, the two join together instantly without affecting the overall time measurement. It was designed to let you time two events simultaneously. I use it as an expensive fidget-spinner.
Confession: I almost sold this one this year. It’s an expensive watch and something new and exciting caught my eye, which I was feeling guilty about buying. The IWC almost went to pay for it. Luckily, events conspired against me and it didn’t happen. I say ‘luckily’ because, just like with lovers in real life, it’s sometimes a good idea to lock them in a box for a couple of weeks to see if you miss them. When you let them out again, all lonely and gasping for air, does the love reignite? It certainly did with this one. I’m glad it’s still around. It’s now a firm favourite.
Lover #3. Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Calendar in blue (limited edition of 800)
The complicated beauty
Imagine you walk into a room and spot the most elegant, mesmerising person holding court. You can’t hear what they’re saying, but from the nods of the assembled crowd, it looks intelligent, sophisticated and very, very clever. Then, all of a sudden, they do a magic trick that has everybody clapping their hands and hooting. Oh, and to top it all, he or she has a beautiful shiny blue face.
You’ve just met (and likely fallen in love with) the JLC Master Control Calendar, in blue. It’s a limited edition of the standard Master Control Calendar, which is a classically designed ‘complete calendar’ or ‘triple calendar’, which has windows that tell you the day and month, a hand that points to the date around the edge of the dial, and a moonphase to tell you how much of the moon you can see in the sky.
What about that magic trick? To avoid the date hand ever covering the moonphase display, the clever engineers at JLC designed the hand to ‘jump’ across the display from the 15th to the 16th each month. That’s magic. Well, clever engineering at the very least.
Lover #4. Orion Field Standard II
The independent-minded free-thinker
For me, the biggest surprise of the year has been my growing love for small and independent watch brands. For my money, they’re doing the most interesting and innovative - often daring - stuff out there. And the ones I’ve fallen for are all labours of love - not simply a cynical attempt to jump on a current bandwagon and make a few bucks. They’re truly passionate watchmakers designing and crafting stunning pieces that they’d probably still make even if there was nobody around to buy them.
Step forward Orion and Nick Harris, its founder. Harris is a watchmaker who set up Orion to fund his course at watchmaking school. While he started out modifying Seiko watches, he then turned his considerable talent to bringing his own designs to life. And thank Crunchie he did, because his skill and attention to detail is simply incredible. The quality and finish is damn fine. Perhaps not quite Grand Seiko. But, for the money, I’ve not seen better.
My Field Standard II is bead-blasted, giving it a soft matte texture. The bracelet has polished edges on each link, giving it a little shine as you turn your wrist. And the dial has diamond-polished markers and Orion’s serif font which makes it interesting and a bit of an enigma on a field watch, which you’d usually expect to be both plain, unadulterated and (perhaps most of all) sans-serif.
I bloody love this watch. It regularly woos me away from other more demanding and more expensive companions.
Lover #5. Tudor Pelagos 39
The sensible-but-alluring Swiss companion
I love Switzerland. It plays to my sense of order, logic and cleanliness. There’s something about the rule-following and attention to detail that makes me want to go there and never leave. Boring? No way. Shut your dirty mouth.
This year, I was lucky to land at the top of the list for the in-demand Tudor Pelagos 39. Now, I’m no diver…I barely get my hair wet in the sea. But the Pelagos dive watch has always been my favourite Tudor model. It’s a proper tool watch, designed with function first in priority. Very Swiss.
The trouble is, the original models were just a bit big. So when the engineers at Tudor shaved a few millimetres off the width and created the new 39mm model, I was sold. They also made it in grade two titanium, which is a bit darker than the old grade 5, and it looks really cool. And the sunburst dial is very subtle, very slick and has a lovely vintage pop of red text on it. Yes, yes, yes, it’s not as ‘pure’ a dive watch as the originals. But I go in the sea about three times a year and mainly only get wet in the shower. So I couldn’t give a fig.
The Pelagos 39 is basically a Rolex Submariner without the bluster and bling. A brilliant tool that will do the job perfectly, no matter what you throw at it. A perfectly Swiss watch.
Wow, five amazing timepieces indeed! It is incredible that you collected all of them in one year! Thanks for sharing with us your collection and your love for them! Congratulations and enjoy!