Business & Industry
WatchPro
UK Protection launches new transport service to address underinsurance
UK Protection Ltd is entering the high-value goods transport sector with a premium armoured consignment service insured by TH March, using a fleet of unmarked B4-rated armoured vans engineered to withstand pistol-calibre threats, plus escort vehicles and vetted crews drawn from police and military backgrounds. The pitch targets underinsurance by matching cover to goods value, timed to a UK jewellery market forecast to grow from £4.2 billion in 2025 to £9.95 billion by 2033. As consignment values climb and criminal networks get more sophisticated, secure logistics is becoming a compliance-grade line item for jewellers rather than a nice-to-have.
WatchPro
Hong Kong Watch & Clock Fair returns for milestone 45th edition
The 45th Hong Kong Watch & Clock Fair and 14th Salon de TIME run at the HKCEC from September 1-5, again pairing the physical show with the Click2Match online matching platform (August 25 to September 12). The scale (OEM/ODM manufacturing, components, microbrands, wearable tech) and forums on RCEP, the Greater Bay Area, and AI convergence are a reminder that Asia's supply-side and trade dealmaking still runs through Hong Kong, whatever the Geneva glamour suggests.
WatchPro
How Geneva Watch Days has become unmissable for retailers, press and collectors
Geneva Watch Days, born as a pandemic stopgap in 2020, has grown to nearly 70 exhibiting brands and now functions as the Swiss industry's second major showcase, positioned six months from Watches & Wonders and timed to feed retailers novelties ahead of the holiday selling season. President Jean-Christophe Babin makes the commercial case: a decentralised, no-fixed-venue model with fees scaled to company size (rather than stand size) gives emerging independents and revived maisons an affordable platform, and with only seven or eight brands overlapping between the two fairs, the combined calendar exposes buyers to roughly 130 different brands. Last year drew around 300 retailers and well over 2,000 collectors, and Babin argues (citing that over a third of recent GPHG awards went to GWD exhibitors) that the next generation of industry powerhouses is more likely to emerge from these niche players than the established giants.
WatchPro
The luxury watch industry’s hidden sustainability advantage
A WatchPro feature argues that luxury watchmaking's core promise (built to last, repairable, passed between generations) is its overlooked sustainability edge, with the pre-owned market now worth roughly CHF 24 billion, about a third of the primary market, and eBay listings up over 65% since 2020. The commercial subtext: dealers from Christie's to Chrono24 concede sustainability rarely drives buyers (rarity and value do), so circularity is a marketing tailwind rather than a demand driver, while smaller brands like Detrash, WOLF and ID Genève position themselves as the nimble alternative to slower-moving giants they accuse of greenwashing.</parameter> <parameter name="categories">[]
Revolution Watch
Beyond the Boutique: The Experiential World Of Watch Retail
Revolution surveys how luxury watch retail is pivoting from display cases to full-blown hospitality, cataloguing the arms race in experiential spaces: AP House (Hong Kong, Singapore, the latter with an AP Café run with one-Michelin-starred Burnt Ends), Omega's "The Suite" in Hong Kong, Richard Mille's 700-square-meter St. Martin flagship in Singapore, Breitling's Townhouse Hannam in Seoul, Vacheron's Club 1755 in London, Panerai's trip-based Experiences Program, and F.P. Journe's Geneva restaurant. It also flags the model spreading to the secondary market, citing Singapore auction house FutureGrail's tie-up with Royal Salute whisky. The takeaway for the industry: as allocation and rarity define the top of the market, the differentiator brands are competing on is context and community, not the product in the vitrine.</parameter> <parameter name="categories">[]
Community & Culture
Fratello
A Difficult Question That Needs Answering: When Are Watches Art?
Fratello's Lex Stolk uses a lunch with Phillips' Aurel Bacs and Alex Ghotbi, sparked by the house's record US$75.8 million New York sale (all lots sold, 16 above US$1 million, topped by an F.P. Journe Résonance "Souscription No. 007" at US$13.92 million), to argue watches only count as art when they reflect a single maker's personal vision, not series production. The commercial read: auction houses now stage watch sales like fine-art events, and the "art" framing (invoked around Journe, Rexhepi, Voutilainen and Haldimann's CHF 209,000 H9) is precisely the narrative that props up independents' prices as store-of-value assets. It's a philosophical piece, but the subtext is how storytelling and scarcity manufacture value at the top of the market.
Fratello
Fratello Talks: How Our Grail Watches Have Evolved Over Time
The latest Fratello Talks podcast has Nacho, RJ, and Thomas debating how their grail watches have shifted over the years, with wrist checks including RJ's Omega Speedmaster Apollo 11 50th Anniversary in Moonshine Gold, Thomas's 37mm Bravur Team Heritage REN, and Nacho's hand-wound VPC Type 37HW Dove Grey. It's a soft-content episode built around the truism that a grail is fluid and tracks a collector's evolving taste rather than a fixed target.
Worn & Wound
The Ruhla UFO: A Memento of Mod and The Cold War
Worn & Wound profiles the Ruhla UFO, a chrome-plated East German curiosity likely produced between the late 1960s and mid-70s, with a 36mm case, green space-age numerals, and a "Made in GDR" dial. It runs the ubiquitous pin-pallet Caliber 24 (35-hour reserve, 18,000 BPH, +240/-120 sec/day accuracy), a movement Ruhla built to the tune of roughly 150 million units. The takeaway for collectors: a sub-$100 time capsule from a criminally overlooked brand that once ran one of the world's largest watch factories.
Fratello
We Had It So Good: The IWC Mark XV And The Rolex Explorer Ref. 114270
Fratello makes the case for a neo-vintage pairing: the IWC Mark XV (ref. IW325301, produced 1999-2005, 38mm, caliber 30110) and the Rolex Explorer ref. 114270 (2001-2010, 36mm, caliber 3130). The commercial hook is value hiding in plain sight: the 114270 trades around €5,700-6,000 secondhand against €7,800 for the current 36mm Explorer, while a clean Mark XV runs roughly €3,500-5,000 on Chrono24 versus €6,900 for the modern Mark XX, a reminder that turn-of-the-millennium proportions are undervalued relative to current retail.
Reviews
SJX Watches
Rolex Submariner Date Desk Clock Ref. 909010LN
SJX Watches went hands-on with Rolex's Submariner Date Desk Clock ref. 909010LN, an 80mm brushed-steel piece priced at US$10,930 (excluding taxes) and sold at Rolex boutiques. They praise the flawless fit and finish, hefty build, and a decorated cal. 8335 quartz movement with a 400-year secular perpetual calendar and GMT-style date-setting, while faulting the design as a boring blown-up Submariner face and calling it a conservative first entry (with more intriguing desk clocks reportedly in the works). Their verdict: expensive for a quartz clock on paper, but a reasonable proposition given the build quality.
Hodinkee
The Haim Watch Co. Annum
Hodinkee goes hands-on with the Haim Watch Co. Annum, a complete calendar with moonphase from the Chicago microbrand, priced at $2,149.99 in a 38mm case (45mm lug-to-lug, 12mm thick) powered by the brand's HWC-02, a Miyota 9000 base topped with founder M. Zakir Miah's proprietary calendar module. They praise it as punching well above its weight and "absolutely fantastic on the wrist," favoring the semi-transparent Fumée dial that shows off the module, though they fault the manual pusher corrections needed five months a year and call it a poor pick for a beginner. The trade takeaway: Miah's DIY module (born after he could only source about five flawed NOS ETA 2890-9 calibers) shows a microbrand delivering a compelling mechanical calendar under $2,500.
WatchTime
Hands-on with the D1 Milano D-Tech Oil II
WatchTime went hands-on with the D1 Milano D-Tech Oil II, an oil-filled compressor-style watch running Miyota's quartz caliber 2S60, priced at $345 with a 39mm PVD-coated case and 100m water resistance. Reviewer Martin Green praises it as a higher-quality package than the price suggests, citing clean finishing, comfortable proportions and a bezel that stays put, though he notes the bracelet lacks micro-adjustment and calls it a design watch rather than a true diver. The trade takeaway: an oil-filled case, a niche usually associated with Ressence, Sinn and U-Boat, delivered at a $345 entry point.
Time + Tide
Would Zach trade his Credor Eichi II for the new Grand Seiko SBGZ011 ‘Majestic Waterfall’?
Time + Tide's Zach Blass calls the Grand Seiko SBGZ011 'Majestic Waterfall' a genuine grail, praising the hand-engraved platinum 44GS case (the first engraved 44GS, versus the usual Elegance case) and arguing the Spring Drive 9R02's finishing, complete with a "frog's eyes" internal angle, actually bests the Credor Eichi II's 7R14 he owns. The trade detail worth noting: it lands July 2026 at US$84,000 in a run of just 50 pieces, which Blass flags as unusually generous for a Micro Artist Studio piece of this level.
aBlogtoWatch
A Slick Six Days Of Power Reserve: Singer Reimagined Caballero Watch Review
aBlogtoWatch reviews the Singer Reimagined Caballero, a 39mm time-only dress watch (10.5mm thick, 50m WR) built around the exclusive ST5000 "Solo Tempo" movement, which delivers six days of power reserve from four linked barrels running at 4Hz; steel is $23,700 and titanium $25,000. They praise the movement's symmetrical finishing and the case's charm but fault the marker-less dial, arguing it undermines legibility and defeats the point of a high-accuracy, long-reserve caliber with no power reserve indicator. The takeaway for trade readers: even a genuinely novel movement is a tough sell in the crowded $20K-$30K segment when the design forces a style-versus-substance tradeoff.
New Releases
Worn & Wound
Breitling Goes Back to Its Racing Roots with Three New Top Time Models Celebrating the Iconic Aston Martin DB5
Breitling has expanded its Aston Martin partnership with three Top Time B01 Chronograph 41 editions honoring the DB5: a steel/silver-dial version limited to 1,022 pieces, a steel-and-platinum black lacquer version limited to 315, and an 18k rose gold onyx-dial edition (the brand's first use of onyx) capped at 250. All three run the COSC-certified Manufacture Caliber 01 with column wheel, vertical clutch, and 70-hour reserve, visible through an exhibition caseback with an Aston Martin engraved rotor. Coming after this year's Navitimer collaboration, it's Breitling leaning hard into the co-branded automotive playbook that Aston Martin's Bond-era cachet was built to sell.
Monochrome Watches
All the new Dials for the Rolex Datejust in 2026, and There’s Much More than the Green Ombré
Rolex quietly expanded its Datejust line for 2026 with well over 100 new references, headlined by a green ombré dial (its first ombré created via lacquering) that appears across 8 references in 36mm and 41mm, on Oyster or Jubilee bracelets with smooth or fluted bezels. Beyond the single green ombré it publicized at Watches and Wonders, Rolex redesigned nearly all Roman-numeral dials with sharper sans-serif applied numerals and a unified railroad minute track, plus a wide palette of new tones (mint, olive, aubergine, salmon and more), all running the Calibre 3235 with 100m water resistance. The commercial tell: the bulk of the update went uncommunicated, meaning Rolex refreshed roughly half its Datejust catalog while letting the market discover it at the retail counter.
Monochrome Watches
New Green and Blue Dials for the Hamilton Khaki Field Power Reserve 40mm
Hamilton is adding matte olive green and mid-blue dials to its Khaki Field Power Reserve 40mm line, joining last year's black and white versions. The hand-wound calibre H-23 (an ETA 2801-2 evolution with 80h reserve and Nivachron hairspring) sits in a sandblasted 40mm steel case with 100m water resistance and a power reserve gauge at 9 o'clock. Both are unlimited and available now: CHF 765/EUR 915 on NATO strap, CHF 845/EUR 995 on the steel bracelet. Commercially this keeps Hamilton fighting for the sub-CHF-1,000 field-watch buyer, where its volume-driven ETA sourcing is the whole advantage.
Fratello
Get Out On The Green With The New Vaer G2 Fairway GMT
Vaer has released the G2 Fairway GMT, a golf-minded quartz GMT built around a 24-click bidirectional steel bezel that swaps the usual 24-hour scale for a -5 to +18 golf scoring track (black for on/over par, orange for under), while keeping GMT timekeeping via a 24-hour rehaut. The 39mm case (10.8mm thick, 46mm lug-to-lug, 150m water resistance) houses a Swiss Ronda quartz GMT movement with a 40-month battery, dressed in a green tee-box dial with a tee-and-ball seconds hand and a worldtimer case back. Pricing starts at US$449 on a single-pass strap or Oyster-style bracelet, with a premium three-row bracelet available for US$90 more; it is currently sold out with a new production run coming.
Monochrome Watches
The Seiko Prospex 1968 Heritage Diver’s GMT HBC001 and HBC002
Seiko has added two non-limited references to its Prospex 1968 Heritage Diver's GMT line, the black HBC001 and green HBC002, replacing the 2023 SPB381 and SPB383 with 300m water resistance (up from 200m) and a redesigned six-step slide-adjust clasp offering roughly 15mm of tool-free extension. The 42mm steel case (13.3mm thick, 48.6mm lug-to-lug) runs the caller-style GMT Calibre 6R54 at 21,600vph with a 72-hour power reserve. Both are priced at EUR 1,900 and available now, folding the year's incremental upgrades into what Seiko is positioning as the complete version of this GMT diver.
Podcasts
Hodinkee
The Business of Watches Podcast: Inside Lorier Watches' Acquisition With Lorenzo Ortega And Blake Malin
Lorier co-founder Lorenzo Ortega and Worn & Wound CEO Blake Malin join The Business of Watches to unpack Worn & Wound's acquisition of the New York micro-brand Lorier, its first-ever brand purchase, and how a two-person shop that couldn't keep up with demand found a buyer instead of winding down.