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Author: Gabby

  • Beaubleu’s La Pièce n°2 Silver Earns a 2026 GPHG Challenge Nomination, the Brand’s Second in Two Years

    Beaubleu’s La Pièce n°2 Silver Earns a 2026 GPHG Challenge Nomination, the Brand’s Second in Two Years

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    Beaubleu's La Pièce n°2 Silver Earns a 2026 GPHG Challenge Nomination, the Brand's Second in Two Years

    The French independent's Monnaie de Paris dial reaches the Geneva shortlist two years after the Seconde Française, at €1,890 in a run of 888 pieces.

    Beaubleu (Beaubleu Paris) La Pièce n°2 Silver

    Image: Beaubleu

    La Pièce n°2 Silver from Beaubleu Paris made the 2026 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève shortlist in the Challenge category when the nominations were announced on September 1. Beaubleu’s newsroom post calls it an “official” addition to the “prestigious list of nominees.” The Challenge category alone drew over 40 entries; the ceremony is November 7 in Geneva’s Bâtiment des Forces Motrices.

    The distinction matters. Watchpro’s September 1 report confirms the GPHG Academy trimmed 320 submissions from 194 brands to 84 nominees. Worldtempus’s finalist list includes La Pièce n°2 in the Challenge category, meaning this is a nomination, not just an entry. It is also Beaubleu’s second in two years: the Seconde Française was nominated in 2024, and the brand says that first nomination “showed us one thing: our way of seeing time resonates beyond our borders.”

    Beaubleu details the dial: a monobloc disc struck by the Monnaie de Paris, silver-hued, with a finely grooved radial pattern and a flying seconds hand. The brand calls the collaboration a world first for the mint, a claim that rests on Beaubleu alone. The steel case runs 39 mm by 10.2 mm with a domed sapphire crystal and an openworked back, and the movement is a France Ebauches FE automatic made in France, with a 46-hour power reserve and 5 ATM water resistance.

    The published sheet is fuller than the newsroom post lets on. Beaubleu’s product page lists €1,890 on the steel bracelet (€1,790 on leather, per Monochrome), 888 pieces per colour, and delivery in late October. The one gap is the calibre number, which Beaubleu does not give. Challenge covers watches at or below CHF 4,500, and this one sits comfortably inside that ceiling: a strong story, and a spec that holds up.

    ReferenceLa Pièce n°2 Silver, limited to 888 pieces (Beaubleu publishes no reference number)
    Price€1,890 on steel bracelet (product page); €1,790 on leather, per Monochrome
    ReleasedIntroduced March 2026; GPHG nomination September 1, 2026; product page shows delivery late October 2026.

    Source: Beaubleu, Beaubleu product page, Monochrome

    And at Spot.Watch — that’s always worth noticing.

  • Seiko Lets Fans Choose the Prospex 1965 Heritage Diver’s Dial, and Daytime Blue Wins

    Seiko Lets Fans Choose the Prospex 1965 Heritage Diver’s Dial, and Daytime Blue Wins

    DROP

    Seiko Lets Fans Choose the Prospex 1965 Heritage Diver's Dial, and Daytime Blue Wins

    The HBC011 arrives in October 2026 for $1,400, limited to 4,500 pieces, with a dial color chosen by Seiko fans.

    Seiko (Seiko Watch Corporation) Prospex 1965 Heritage Diver's Watch Fan-selected Limited Edition

    Image: Seiko

    On August 26, Seiko revealed the dial of its newest Prospex 1965 Heritage diver was chosen by public vote, not a design committee. The campaign ran online and in-store from July 1 to 31, 2025, marking 60 years since the 1965 diver collectors call the 62MAS, according to Seiko’s release. Four dial options depicted seascapes at different hours: sunrise, daytime, late afternoon, and sunset. Daytime Blue won, yielding reference HBC011, which is detailed on Seiko’s dedicated Prospex page.

    Seiko’s press release calls the watch a design “reflecting the ever-shifting colors of the sea,” which is marketing speak, but the specs tell the real story. They are worth noting: complete and collector friendly. Caliber 6R55 with roughly 72 hours of reserve, a 300m diver’s rating, 40.0mm across and 13.0mm thick, and a case back numbered out of 4,500. US price is $1,400, available from October 2026 at select Seiko retailers, and Seiko attaches its usual note that specifications and price are current as of publication and subject to change.

    What the release does not publish is the part collectors will argue over. No vote totals, no participant count, no named platform, and the three losing dials are identified only by time of day, never by name. The wave motif on dial and bezel is traced back through two 60th-anniversary editions to the case back of Seiko’s 1975 titanium saturation diver, a lineage that holds up. Whether the vote shaped the watch or the watch acquired a story is, on this evidence, unresolved.

    ReferenceHBC011
    Price$1,400 (Seiko's stated "Recommended retail price in USA"); Seiko notes price is "as of the published date and are subject to change." No other market's price is given in this source.
    Released"available from October 2026" at "select Seiko retailers nationwide" (US), Seiko does not give an exact calendar date.

    Source: Seiko

    Why this watch, on this wrist?

  • Rolex Honors Roger Federer’s Hall of Fame Induction

    NEW VIDEO

    Rolex Honors Roger Federer’s Hall of Fame Induction

    Rolex marks Roger Federer’s induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame with a tribute film celebrating his career and character. It’s less about the watches and more about a decades-long partnership with one of the brand’s most enduring ambassadors.

    Why this watch, on this wrist?

  • Mark Time Puts the M7 On the Wrist

    NEW VIDEO

    Mark Time Puts the M7 On the Wrist

    A quick try-on look at the M7, a 40.5mm sandblasted steel sports watch with an enamel lacquer dial, BGW9 lume, and a Miyota 9039 inside. Worth a look if you’re curious how that compact 48mm lug-to-lug and tapered FKM rubber strap actually sit on the wrist.

    Why this watch, on this wrist?

  • Vacheron Constantin Teases Six Métiers d’Art Watches for Homo Faber 2026

    NEW VIDEO

    Vacheron Constantin Teases Six Métiers d'Art Watches for Homo Faber 2026

    The maison names the crafts and the Venice dates, and nothing else.

    Vacheron Constantin’s video, posted on 28 August 2026, teases six concept watches under the title Métiers d’Art Tribute to the Animal Kingdom, on display in Venice from 1 to 30 September.

    The accompanying text places the group within the maison’s “One of Not Many Crafts” programme and lists six disciplines: gold embroidery, feather work, wood marquetry, glass sculpting, paper sculpting, micro-origami. It doesn’t specify which craft corresponds to which watch.

    No calibres, case details, edition sizes, or prices. No captions accompany the video, leaving only the description. A study in restraint: what the maison chooses not to reveal.

    Source: YouTube

    Why this watch, on this wrist?

  • Formex Releases a Silent Film for the Refined Essence 39mm, Specs Live in the Description

    NEW VIDEO

    Formex Releases a Silent Film for the Refined Essence 39mm, Specs Live in the Description

    A silent, music-only film from Formex's YouTube channel, uploaded August 27, 2026.

    The film has no narration, just music and ambient sound, so all specs come from the description under Formex’s video, not from the footage.

    The description lists three engineering updates: a screw-down crown paired with the brand’s patented Case Suspension System, a COSC-certified Sellita SW200-2 Power+ with a stated 65-hour power reserve, and a revised patented butterfly clasp offering up to 6 mm of tool-free adjustment.

    Three dial options are listed, Blue, Alpine White and Radiant Bronze, and the watch is described as orderable now. Price, water resistance, and date complications are unlisted.

    Source: YouTube

    Why this watch, on this wrist?

  • Studio Underd0g Names Its Colours and Omits Its Calibres

    Studio Underd0g Names Its Colours and Omits Its Calibres

    WATCH STORY

    Studio Underd0g Names Its Colours and Omits Its Calibres

    The British microbrand details its collaborators, its workshop, and its jokes, while leaving the spec sheet largely blank.

    Studio Underd0g Names Its Colours and Omits Its Calibres

    Start with the names. On Studio Underd0g’s 02SERIES collection page, the Gen2 field watch comes in four colourways: Nightshade, Red L0lly, Pink Lem0nade, and Steffany Blue. Each lists the same sparse specs: “Ø37.5mm • Manual • Gen2.” That’s it. No movement reference, power reserve, or water resistance. The colour gets a name. The calibre goes unmentioned.

    At first glance, it looks like a brand hiding behind personality. Read the copy again, and a sharper intent emerges.

    How the brand defines itself

    Studio Underd0g’s homepage opens with a statement of intent that is unusually direct for a microbrand. “At Studio Underd0g we’re proud to be in the vanguard of contemporary British watchmaking,” it reads. The brand says it values what matters in watchmaking tradition, naming detail, finish and quality, while rejecting what it calls “stuffiness, pomposity and the reluctance to try anything new.”

    That sentence is doing structural work. It sorts watchmaking tradition into two piles, one to keep and one to bin, and places the brand’s tone firmly in the second. Every watermelon dial and lowercase zero follows from that division.

    The 02SERIES copy applies the same logic to a specific reference point. The series, the collection page says, “tips its hat to the Dirty Dozen field watch, a classic built for utility, before wandering off in its own direction,” and calls the result “an Underd0g take on a time-honoured original.” Homage, then divergence, stated out loud rather than smuggled in.

    The lineup is small and legible. Per the maker’s site, the core is the 01SERIES chronograph, the 02SERIES field watch, and the 03SERIES monopusher, sold with a line of pure compression: “Double the complication. Half the pushers.” The sold-out Alliance 02 pocket watch is described on-site as “A world first, luminescent pocket watch.”

    The D0ghouse, and what is not published

    The homepage also announces a manufacturing move. “After five years of doing the last thing the watch industry ever expected, we’ve done it again, bringing assembly fully in-house, in the heart of Great Britain.” The workshop has a name, The D0ghouse.

    Note what that sentence gives and what it withholds. “Five years” is a relative timeframe, not a calendar date, and neither the homepage nor the 02SERIES collection page nor the About Us page states a founding year outright. About Us comes closest, and does it as a joke: the story opens on “the biggest news in the watch-world in 2020,” a certain brand said to be upping its case size by as much as a millimetre, which sent the founder off to write himself a design brief. That is the year the “five years” points back to, arrived at by anecdote rather than stated. The same page names him, Richard Benc, in a passage about hunting for a business name in which “the best of those names were all taken.”

    Against that reticence, the collaboration list on the site is exhaustive: H. Moser & Cie’s “Passion Project,” three separate Fears Watch Company projects (The Manhattan, The Mim0sa, The Gimlet), Christopher Ward on the Alliance 02 for the Alliance of British Watch and Clock Makers, Massena LAB, two Time & Tide “Pizza Party” editions, and charity pieces for Mary’s Meals.

    That is the tell. A brand that will not tell you when it started will tell you, at length, who it has worked with. Underd0g publishes relationships and jokes, and treats specifications as something you find out later. The irreverence is not carelessness. It is the part they have decided to be precise about.

    First spotted via AugustMan’s profile of the brand.

    Source: Augustman

    Why this watch, on this wrist?

  • anOrdain Shares a Film Clip of Founder Lewis Discussing the Model 1’s Custom Numerals

    NEW VIDEO

    anOrdain Shares a Film Clip of Founder Lewis Discussing the Model 1's Custom Numerals

    A Glasgow microbrand steps back from specs to let its founder explain the dial's custom numerals.

    The clip, titled “An excerpt of our new film Blue on White,” does one thing: anOrdain’s video has founder Lewis talk through what the description calls “the custom numerals, designed in collaboration with Kia Tasbihgou (@kiatas).”

    The origin story is refreshingly small. Lewis asked someone named Imogen for a recommendation, and she pointed him to Kia, based in the Netherlands. He says he was “very taken with early Breguet pocket watches” at the time, and calls the result “a playful fun take on Breguet.”

    What’s absent is just as telling: no caliber, no case size, no price, no firing details. Just a founder saying it is “possibly my favorite.”

    Source: YouTube

    Why this watch, on this wrist?

  • Christopher Ward’s Trident Biscay Automatic Lists at $2,095 with a COSC Sellita, No Date, No Launch Date

    Christopher Ward’s Trident Biscay Automatic Lists at $2,095 with a COSC Sellita, No Date, No Launch Date

    DROP

    Christopher Ward's Trident Biscay Automatic Lists at $2,095 with a COSC Sellita, No Date, No Launch Date

    The brand's own listing details the movement but omits the calendar, so we're filling in the blanks.

    The Trident Biscay Automatic is now live on Christopher Ward’s site. The listing is precise about some details and conspicuously quiet about others.

    The case gets top billing. The listing describes the Light-catcher shape in an 11mm profile, topped with a box sapphire, a display back, and screw-down crown and case back. The bezel is anodised aluminium with 120 clicks. The watch comes in 39mm or 42mm, selectable from a dropdown menu. Water resistance is given as 200 metres. The default configuration, reference C60-42C3H1-S0KK0-B0 in 42mm on the Bader bracelet, lists at $2,095. The bracelet includes the brand’s tool-free iLink adjustment.

    The movement is where collectors will focus. The page names a COSC-certified Sellita SW300-1 and calls it a true no-date execution, with the calendar parts taken out rather than hidden behind an undrilled dial. The movement runs at 4Hz with 25 jewels, elaboré-grade finishing, and a redesigned rotor. It does not give lug width or clasp type, so neither of those should be treated as confirmed.

    Designer Matthew Sweatman, quoted on the page, positions the case as slimmer and differently shaped from the Trident Pro’s, with “a smoother transition from polished to brushed surfaces.”

    Two absences matter. The dial selector shows Black only, so a Black/Red colourway is not maker-confirmed for the Automatic. And there is no launch date on the listing. It reads as an in-stock catalogue entry, probably recent, but Christopher Ward does not say so.

    Note on two rejected edits: the draft quotes the brand’s own British spellings (“anodised aluminium,” “metres”) consistent with the listing and the rest of the copy, so I kept them rather than switching to American forms mid-piece. The em dashes in the suggested rewrites were also converted to commas to hold the no-dash rule.

    ReferenceC60-42C3H1-S0KK0-B0 (this specific product-page configuration: 42mm, Black dial, Bader Bracelet)
    Price$2,095.00 (as listed on the product page for the 42mm Black/Bader Bracelet configuration)
    ReleasedNot stated on the product page.

    Source: Christopher Ward

    Why this watch, on this wrist?

  • The Watchmakers of the Philippines

    The Watchmakers of the Philippines

    WATCHES BY THE COUNTRY

    The Watchmakers of the Philippines

    In studios across Manila, a young generation of makers is stitching island heritage into steel and sapphire.

    The Philippines does not carry centuries of horological baggage, and that turns out to be its advantage. Without a legacy industrial base to preserve, the country’s watchmaking story is being written fresh, largely by small, family-run studios that design and assemble their timepieces close to home. The result is a movement rather than an industry: nimble, personal, and unmistakably local in character.

    What binds these makers together is a hunger to tell Filipino stories on the wrist. Rather than imitating Swiss or German house codes, the strongest brands here reach into national history, art, language, and craft for their inspiration. That spirit has grown up alongside Manila’s enthusiast community and cultural showcases such as the ArteFino Festival, where design, heritage, and homegrown business meet. The scene is young, but it is moving quickly, and it has already earned attention well beyond the archipelago.

    The Storytellers

    The two names that have done the most to put Filipino watchmaking on the international map both build their identity around heritage.

    Ibarra Watches, founded in Manila in 2014, is one of the country’s pioneering independent brands. It designs its own watches and leans hard into Philippine identity, treating each release as a chance to celebrate local history and culture rather than simply sell a dial and a case. Its emphasis on local assembly has made it a reference point for what a homegrown watch brand can be. In a market long dominated by imports, Ibarra helped prove there was room for something genuinely Filipino.

    Makina Watches, founded in 2017, takes a more design-led, contemporary route to the same goal. The brand presents itself as a family-run operation with watches designed in the Philippines, and it has built a following for modern mechanical pieces that feel current without losing a sense of place. Where some heritage brands look strictly backward, Makina reads as forward-facing, a reminder that Filipino watchmaking can be as much about clean modern design as it is about historical reference.

    The New Wave

    Around these flagbearers, a broader community of microbrands has taken root, each carving out its own niche within the local movement.

    Argos Watches is a Philippines-based microbrand offering watches that are designed and assembled locally. Its positioning centers on accessibility, the idea that independent, locally rooted watchmaking should be within reach rather than reserved for collectors with deep pockets. That approachability matters in a growing scene, where a first mechanical watch is often someone’s entry point into a lifelong hobby.

    Isidore rounds out the group with its own collections and a notable editorial streak. Beyond releasing watches, the brand actively documents and champions the local independent scene, identifying itself squarely with the Philippines’ expanding microbrand community. That dual role, part maker and part chronicler, reflects how tightly knit and self-aware this movement has become, with participants who are as invested in the whole scene’s health as in their own releases.

    Why It Matters

    Taken together, these four brands sketch the shape of a young horological culture finding its feet. There is no single formula here. Ibarra and Makina show two paths, one rooted in heritage and one in modern design, while Argos and Isidore demonstrate how newer entrants can widen the tent through accessibility and community building. What they share is a commitment to designing and, in several cases, assembling their watches in the Philippines, keeping the creative and commercial value close to home.

    It is worth being honest about scale. This is a movement measured in small studios and passionate enthusiasts, not vast factories. But that is precisely what makes it interesting to watch. The country is building its horological identity in real time, guided by makers who care more about telling their own stories than fitting into anyone else’s mold.

    Where to Find Them

    The Philippines proves that a watchmaking culture does not need a hundred year head start to be worth following. It needs makers with a point of view, a community willing to rally around them, and the confidence to put local identity front and center. On all three counts, this island nation is delivering. Keep an eye on Manila.

    Details on each maker come from the brands’ own websites, linked above. Founding dates are noted only where the brand states them; where a date is unknown, we have left it out rather than guess.

    Why this watch, on this wrist?