Business & Industry
WatchPro
Watches and Jewellery lead growth for LVMH in H1
LVMH's Watches & Jewellery division was the rare bright spot in a flat H1 2026, with sales up to €5.23 billion (from €5.09 billion) and operating margin ticking from 15% to 16%, even as group revenue crept just 2% to €33.6 billion. Tiffany and Bulgari drove the growth while TAG Heuer, Hublot and Zenith got polite namechecks for marketing and launches, a reminder of where the momentum in LVMH's watch stable actually sits. With the stock still down 27% year-to-date despite a Q2 uptick, the "worst is over" narrative is doing a lot of work here.
WatchPro
De Bethune was never for sale says majority owner The 1916 Company
The 1916 Company CEO John Shmerler is pushing back on ex-Audemars Piguet chief Francois-Henri Bennahmias, who told BoF he'd tried to buy De Bethune: Shmerler insists the brand "was never for sale" and that talks only ever concerned a minority stake before the owner walked. With former TAG Heuer and Bulgari boss Antoine Pin newly installed as CEO and a 25th anniversary looming in 2027, The 1916 Company is clearly holding De Bethune tight in a bet that Denis Flageollet's atelier is the next F.P. Journe-style independent to reach stratospheric valuations.
WatchPro
Retail crime edges down as industry takes action
UK shoplifting and retail offences fell 4% to 507,086 in the year ending March 2026, per new ONS figures, following an action plan agreed at a New Scotland Yard roundtable between the Met Police, the Mayor's Office and around 20 retailers. The BRC calls it a "welcome indication of progress" but flags the pace as too slow: for jewellers and watch retailers, the real test is whether new laws (the standalone offence for assaulting a worker, the scrapped £200 low-level theft threshold) actually get enforced.
WatchPro
More than a label: Brands need to tell their sustainability story better
A WatchPro Q&A makes the case that luxury watch consumers, especially younger ones, now treat sustainability as a pricing-justifier on par with quality, yet brands lag at communicating the progress they have made. The commercial takeaway: watchmaking's inherent circularity (serviceable, restorable, resellable across generations) is arguably luxury's strongest sustainability story, but vague label-and-recycled-strap claims without evidence read as greenwashing to a generation checking brands via AI search.
WatchPro
CORDER’S COLUMN: A watch’s first service should be free
WatchPro columnist Rob Corder makes the case that watch servicing is the industry's great unsolved weakness: prohibitively expensive (£500-£700 for a simple automatic, up to £10,000 for a complication), painfully slow (months to a year), and rarely disclosed at point of sale. His fix: bundle the first decade of servicing into the purchase price or a monthly payment plan, the way warranties are sold, forcing brands and retailers to finally treat their loss-making workshops as a real part of the ownership proposition.
Auction & Market
WatchPro
Cartier, Breitling and Jaeger-LeCoultre headline Wilsons Auctions’ Belfast Luxury Sale
Wilsons Auctions' monthly Luxury Goods Auction in Belfast (Thursday 30 July, 6pm, Mallusk Road, Newtownabbey) is led by a diamond-set Cartier Tank Française in 18ct white gold, with a Cartier Calibre de Cartier in rose gold, a Breitling Navitimer 01 and Chronomat 44, and a rose gold Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso rounding out the headline lots. The pitch here is provenance and in-person viewing at a recently reinvested saleroom, a reminder that regional auction houses are quietly courting trade buyers and collectors for authenticated pre-owned stock.
Community & Culture
SJX Watches
Explained: Grande Sonnerie Click Wheels
SJX breaks down the double click wheel, that pair of large, ornately finished wheels that lets a grande sonnerie's two mainspring barrels (one for the striking works, one for the going train) be wound independently through a single crown by exploiting both directions of rotation. A Vallée de Joux signature dating to around the 1850s and credited (disputedly) to Sylvain Mairet and Louis Audemars, the mechanism now surfaces in modern pieces from Blancpain, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Greubel Forsey and Takahiko Aigaki, sometimes for pure visual theater rather than technical necessity.
Hodinkee
In-Depth: The Patek Philippe Victorin Piguet Split-Second Wristwatch
Hodinkee's latest Reference Points addendum traces Patek Philippe's earliest split-seconds wristwatches back to their Victorin Piguet ébauches, including the 1923 rattrapante for Juventus president Attilio Ubertalli (movement made in 1903, cased two decades later, 33mm by 11.1mm) that predates Patek's first simple chronograph wristwatch by a year. These bespoke one-offs, built before Patek standardized chronograph production in 1934, remain among the most coveted grails for vintage Patek collectors: one single-button example owned by Henry Segrave and Amelia Earhart sold at Monaco Legend Group in 2024 for $1.86 million.
aBlogtoWatch
According To Ariel: Enthusiasts & Brands Should Be Talking About Daytime & Nighttime Wristwatch Categories
In an op-ed, aBlogtoWatch's Ariel Adams argues the industry and collectors should adopt a new categorization: "daytime" versus "nighttime" watches, based on how a watch's materials, finishes, and color palettes read in bright sunlight versus low or artificial light. His pitch to brands is commercial: framing pieces as day or night gives enthusiasts another reason to own more watches and marketers another story to tell.</parameter> <parameter name="categories">[]
Time + Tide
The Santurce Collection Picúa puts Puerto Rico on the dive watch map
Puerto Rico's Santurce Collection, founded last year by husband-and-wife duo José and Anita, has released the Picúa: a 39mm, '70s-skin-diver-inspired automatic with 300m water resistance, a DLC-coated steel bezel insert and a Sellita SW200-B, designed in Puerto Rico and assembled in the USA at £723/US$949. The initial run has already sold through (restock pending), and the brand's El Tiburón model landed a slot as an official 2026 GPHG competitor, a real credibility marker for a micro this young.
Hodinkee
In-Depth: The Patek Philippe Split-Seconds Pocket Watch
Hodinkee follows its Reference Points on Patek's split-seconds wristwatches with a deep dive into the brand's rattrapante pocket watches, tracing how Patek moved from its own ébauches to movements supplied by Victorin Piguet et Frères starting in the 1880s. The piece documents the earliest known examples (a 1878-dated split, a 1879 watch delivered to Tiffany & Co. in 1881, and the offset-post no. 65'023 sent to Bailey, Banks & Biddle), and argues the century-long Piguet relationship was foundational to Patek's rise as a complications powerhouse.</parameter> <parameter name="categories">["complications", "chronograph", "vintage"]
Reviews
Fratello
A Promising First Encounter With The Updated Aera D-1 Diver
Fratello's Jorg Weppelink came away impressed with the updated Aera D-1 Diver, praising its Ikepod-inspired sculpted case, ergonomics, and 3D lume indexes, and calling the build quality outstanding for €2,600 / £2,000 (up from the previous generation's £1,200). His one real gripe: at this price he'd have wanted the SW300-1 or a COSC-certified movement rather than the Elaboré-grade Sellita SW200-1, plus hands with more character. The 44mm, 300m diver comes in a limited run of 300 black-dial pieces, with 300 more each in green and blue.
SJX Watches
Singer Reimagined DualTrack
SJX Watches goes hands-on with the DualTrack, Singer Reimagined's first GMT (US$30,400 / CHF22,500 before taxes, at retailers from June 2026), praising the ST5001 manual-wind movement's unusual four-barrel, six-day layout as the standout while noting the "caller"-type GMT is a compromise versus a true traveler's GMT. They call the 43mm x 15mm steel watch fairly priced by today's inflated standards but "not quite great value," and float that a lighter titanium version is likely coming given Singer's past practice.
Worn & Wound
Owner’s Review: the Serica 5303-3
Worn & Wound's owner's review of the Serica 5303-3 finds it a triumph of design over pure tool utility: a 39mm, 12.2mm-thick, 300m diver on a Soprod M100 COSC movement that wears thin thanks to twisted, beveled lugs. They praise the seafoam bezel and integrated mesh bracelet as making it perhaps the most attractive watch the reviewer owns, but fault that same bracelet's antiquated slide-through clasp and punishingly tight end-link tolerances as a rare form-over-function choice from a brand usually obsessed with wearability. The takeaway for the trade: Serica has built a distinct vintage-adjacent identity where buyers happily accept practical compromises for aesthetics, a lesson for microbrands chasing spec-sheet approval.
New Releases
Monochrome Watches
New Indie Atelier Pieters Introduces Its Inaugural Watch, the Atelier 1 Founders’ Series
WOSTEP veterans Maarten and Jessica Pieters have launched their own indie brand, Atelier Pieters, with the Atelier 1 Founders' Series: a 43.5mm platinum tourbillon in "Jour" (rose gold dial) and "Minuit" (anthracite) editions, powered by the in-house hand-wound calibre T2-03RM with a dual-display planetary power reserve. Priced at CHF 148,500 excl. VAT, it's limited to 8 pieces per colourway, sold direct from Les Hauts-Geneveys with roughly four pieces made per year and the first due November 2026. Notable for the founders' pedigree (Maarten worked on the Omega Central Tourbillon and led WOSTEP), this is a case of trainers stepping out to build under their own name, at a price that stakes an ambitious position for a debut.
Worn & Wound
BA111OD Introduces a New Version of their Chapter 7 Skeleton Integrated Bracelet Sports Watch
BA111OD has unveiled a new natural steel version of its 40mm Chapter 7 Skeleton, an integrated-bracelet sports watch inspired by the summer light in Neuchatel, running the Soprod P024 automatic (38-hour reserve, lightly skeletonized and visible from both sides). It comes on a frost blue rubber strap ($1,295) or steel bracelet ($1,380), with availability expected in August. Notable commercially: BA111OD keeps making the value argument, offering genuine movement skeletonization at a price where rivals typically settle for open dials over off-the-shelf calibers.
aBlogtoWatch
Panerai Expands Navy SEALs Collection With Two New Professional Dive Watches
Panerai has added two watches to its Navy SEALs Submersible line: the PAM01738, a 44mm steel diver with a ceramic-insert bezel, 500m water resistance and the new P.980 caliber (three-day reserve), at $12,400; and the PAM01089, limited to 35 pieces in Afniotech (a 95%-plus hafnium alloy), 47mm, 1,000m rated, running the P.9010/GMT, at $99,500. The flagship's price buys more than metal: it includes admission to Panerai's 2027 Navy SEALs Special Operations Experience, a three-day program in Florida, the kind of experiential bundling that is fast becoming the industry's preferred way to justify six-figure limited editions.
Monochrome Watches
Platinum Editions of the Parmigiani Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, Minute Rattrapante and Chronographe Mystérieux
Parmigiani Fleurier marks 30 years of independence with a platinum trilogy of its "hidden complications" Tonda PF models, all in sandblasted 950 platinum with integrated bracelets: the GMT Rattrapante (40mm x 10.7mm, calibre PF051, CHF 91,000), the Minute Rattrapante (40mm x 10.7mm, calibre PF052, CHF 93,000), and the Chronographe Mystérieux (40mm x 13mm, monopusher flyback calibre PF053, 100m WR, 60h reserve, CHF 99,600). Each is limited to 30 pieces and available individually or as a set of three. The anniversary framing signals where Parmigiani wants to compete: sub-verdict, this is a play for the high-complication, understated-flex clientele at Vacheron-and-up money.
WatchTime
Chopard Brings the L.U.C Full Strike Back in Sapphire, for a Second Time
Chopard is marking the 30th anniversary of its Fleurier manufacture with the L.U.C Full Strike Sapphire Edition 2 (ref. 168604-9003), a five-piece minute repeater with case, crown, and dial cut from sapphire crystal and a caliber 08.01-L whose bridges and mainplate now wear a 5N rose-gold PVD treatment. The 42.5mm x 11.55mm watch holds both COSC and Geneva Seal certification, runs a 60-hour reserve with a separate barrel for the strikework, and is priced on request. It's the second sapphire outing for a technology that won Chopard the GPHG Aiguille d'Or in 2017, positioned as the visible companion to this year's far more complex L.U.C Grand Strike.
WatchTime
Union Glashütte Introduces the 1893 Johannes Dürrstein Edition Double Moon Phase
Union Glashütte adds the 1893 Johannes Dürrstein Edition "Double Moon Phase," a 41mm steel dress watch (12.23mm thick, 100m water resistant) with a champagne-colored dial, complete calendar and a dual-hemisphere moon-phase display at 6 o'clock. It runs on the new hand-wound Caliber UNG-58.S2, developed with ETA, with a 60-hour reserve, silicon balance spring and hacking seconds, on a brown croc-embossed strap for €3,100 (roughly $3,550). It's the kind of accessibly-priced Glashütte complication that leans on the ETA partnership to hit its number, a reminder of where Union sits in the Swatch Group hierarchy relative to sibling Glashütte Original.
Fratello
Traveling All Corners Of The Globe With The IFL Watches × Perrelet Weekend GMT Atlas
IFL Watches and Perrelet have turned the Weekend GMT into the hand-painted Atlas, a run of 50 pieces with a blue dial reimagining a compass rose as a world map surrounded by four painted travel scenes. It's a 39mm steel case running the in-house P-401 automatic GMT (42-hour reserve), on sale July 27th, 2026 at 16:00 CEST for US$2,990. Another entry in IFLW's steady collaboration machine, this time renting Perrelet's GMT platform to a hand-painted-dial audience that keeps buying limited runs at this price point.
Monochrome Watches
Union Glashütte Averin Chronograph Limited Edition Sachsen Classic 2026
Union Glashütte redirects its long-running Sachsen Classic rally partnership away from the Noramis and onto the square-cased Averin Chronograph for the rally's 23rd edition (14-15 August 2026). The 41mm by 41mm steel watch carries a white tile-pattern dial with signal red, Nardo grey and Daytona grey racing stripes, runs the Valjoux 7750-based automatic UNG-27.S2 (silicon balance spring, 65-hour reserve), ships on red rubber and grey perforated leather straps, and is limited to 350 numbered pieces at EUR 3,700. It's a smart move to extend the motorsport tie-in onto a Monaco-adjacent case that gives the collaboration fresh visual mileage.
Podcasts
Time + Tide
Faux-tina or no-tina? Andrew and Justin dive deep into the Omega Speedmaster FOIS
Episode 2 of Time+Tide's "Four New Ways to Fly to the Moon" has Andrew McUtchen and Justin Hast debating the £7,400 First Omega in Space, weighing the 2024 grey-blue faux-tina reissue against the cleaner 2012 edition, covering the Wally Schirra history, calibre 3861, and wearability.