Business & Industry
WatchPro
Citizen Watch Company on track for sales of $2.5 billion this year
Citizen Watch Company posted a 30% jump in Q1 net sales to ¥98.1 billion ($614 million) and more than doubled operating profit, prompting an upward revision of its full-year forecast to ¥395 billion ($2.47 billion). Finished watches led the surge, with North American sales up 32% across the group's brands (Citizen, Bulova and the rest), and the share price hit an all-time high after a 161% run over the year. The results put Citizen alongside Casio and Seiko in a banner year for Japan's watch giants, a reminder that the mid-market Japanese players are quietly minting money while the Swiss fret over China.
WatchPro
Time & More UK doubles sales as retail expansion drives record growth
Time & More UK, the family-owned distributor founded by Duncan Harris in 2020, doubled sales year-on-year in 2025 with record profits and is forecasting a further 50% rise in FY2026, crediting the resilience of the sub-£500 category. The company has also extended its exclusive UK distribution deal with The JDM Swiss Group (Roamer, Jacques du Manoir, JDM+, G-STAR). It's a reminder that while the industry obsesses over Swiss luxury, the volume game in Britain lives at the accessible end, and distributors who own those F. Hinds and Signet relationships are quietly compounding.
Hodinkee
Twelve Market Observations By Ben Clymer (August 2026)
Ben Clymer's latest market column argues that complicated Patek Philippe, both vintage and current (5236P, 5172, 5270, 5204), represents massive value against runaway independents, while calling the F.P. Journe secondary market genuinely disconcerting: Chronometre Bleus that sold at retail for $19,890 now fetch near $200,000, and a brass-movement Resonance reportedly traded at $3.3 million. He also flags the AP Royal Oak Mini, now the most-requested watch at AP boutiques and trading around $100,000 secondhand, above A-Series Jumbos. The through-line: the market is pricing rarity and storytelling well above objective watchmaking quality, and someone paying attention can still buy real horology at retail before the window closes.
Community & Culture
Fratello
Shadow Icons: The Underappreciated References Behind Every Great Watch
Fratello launches a "Shadow Icons" series spotlighting the underappreciated references that live in the shadow of each brand's true icons, kicking off with the Vacheron Constantin Overseas (vs. the 222), the Rolex Sea-Dweller (vs. the Submariner), and the Zenith El Primero A384 (vs. the A386). It's a content play designed to mine deep-history storytelling and reader engagement from the second-tier references that enthusiasts covet but that never quite reach icon status.
Watches of Espionage
Bezels & Blades - Tools With A Purpose
Watches of Espionage is releasing the Mosebey 2.0, an updated version of its 2024 field knife named after CIA Africa Division officer Bill "Bwana" Mosebey, machined from MagnaCut steel with a black oxide tumbled finish, OD Green Linen Micarta scales, and a reengineered Kydex sheath, made in North Carolina by Dauntless Manufacturing. The piece extends W.O.E.'s "Use Your Tools" content-plus-commerce playbook: the blog's entire editorial operation is funded by its shop, and knives have become as central to that merchandise line as watch content, riding the same tribal collector dynamics that drive the community.
Reviews
SJX Watches
Richard Mille RM 64-01 Tourbillon Colnago
SJX Watches goes hands-on with the Richard Mille RM 64-01 Tourbillon Colnago, a 50-piece tribute to Tadej Pogacar's Colnago C68 bike, in Quartz TPT and priced at €800,000 before taxes. They praise the ergonomics, the diagonal open-worked layout and finishing that now rivals Audemars Piguet's skeleton tourbillons, but fault it as a purely cosmetic take on a race bike: at this price SJX argues it should offer a technical interpretation of high performance (a chain and fusee, say) rather than hand-painted titanium bridges. The verdict lands on the familiar RM logic: outlandish by conventional watchmaking benchmarks, but for the handful of genuinely rich clients, €800k is Submariner money and nothing else scratches the same itch.
Worn & Wound
Vario’s Navi Collection Goes International
Worn & Wound goes hands-on with Vario's Navi "Chapter One: Europe," five colorways (drawn from the England, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy flags, each with its slow-time single-hand display labeled in that country's language) built on the sold-out 38mm single-hand Navi and priced at $428. The reviewer praises the finishing, tactile bezel, and value ("the look and feel of a watch well over $1,000"), with the only quibble being the philosophical mismatch of an imprecise slow-time display on a maritime-themed watch. For a trade reader, the tell is the run sizes and price point: 240 England, 100 each of Germany and France, 80 each of Spain and Italy, a $428 microbrand punching well above its cost.
aBlogtoWatch
Beaucroft Contour GMT Watch Review: Is This The Best Microbrand Case?
aBlogtoWatch reviewed the Beaucroft Contour GMT and came away close to smitten, calling its in-house case platform possibly the best in the microbrand space and praising the fully articulating hardened-coated bracelet, Tropical Teal dial, and Miyota 9075 flyer GMT regulated to +/-10 seconds/day. The trade takeaway: a $899, 39.5mm sub-$1k GMT that leans on a proprietary case rather than catalog parts, which the reviewer frames as the new baseline expectation for the price bracket.</parameter> <parameter name="categories">["gmt-travel"]
New Releases
Monochrome Watches
Tutima Expands its Fleet with the Compact Flieger T5 in Titanium
Tutima has added the Flieger T5 to its pilot's watch line, a 38.5mm grade 5 titanium case (12.5mm thick, 100m water resistance) powered by the automatic calibre 330 based on the ETA 2836, with 41 hours of reserve. It comes with black or blue lacquered dials, and retails for EUR 2,350 on the titanium bracelet or EUR 1,950 on brown Horween leather. The compact diameter is a clear play at the market's ongoing appetite for smaller cases, positioning Tutima's German-made flieger below the pricier German competition.
Worn & Wound
Jacques Bianchi Introduces their First Watch in Partnership with the Olympique de Marseille Football Club
Jacques Bianchi's first watch with football club Olympique de Marseille is a JB200-based diver: a blue enamel dial (20 layers) with an embossed, sunray-brushed OM logo motif, plus a bezel graduated over 45 minutes with a gray stoppage-time zone from 45 to 60. It's the brand's first COSC-certified piece, running the Soprod P024 in a 42mm steel case with 200m water resistance, priced at €995 including VAT. Billed a limited edition (run size undisclosed), it pre-orders from September 3 for three weeks, with delivery from December into early 2027.</parameter> <parameter name="categories">["dive"]
Monochrome Watches
A Baltic MR Classic for the Bangladesh Watch Club
The Bangladesh Watch Club, founded in 2017, has released its first dedicated watch: a green-dialed take on the Baltic MR Classic dubbed "The First Fifty," limited to 50 individually numbered pieces. It keeps the 36mm x 10mm case, domed Hesalite crystal and Hangzhou CAL5000a micro-rotor movement, but adds a grained green dial nodding to the national flag, a red central seconds hand and rarely-seen Bengali numerals at the cardinals. Priced at BDT 170,000 and reserved for Club members with deliveries at a collectors' dinner in February 2027, all 50 are already spoken for, a reminder that regional watch clubs have become a real distribution channel for micro-brand collabs.
WatchTime
Armin Strom Gives the Mirrored Force Resonance a Bold Red Dial
Armin Strom has added the Mirrored Force Resonance Red to its lineup, a vivid red hand-guilloché dial version of its signature twin-balance resonance watch, powered by the hand-wound manufacture Caliber ARF21 (two complete movements linked by the brand's patented resonance clutch, 3.5 Hz, 48-hour power reserve). The 43mm stainless-steel case (11.55mm thick) comes on a dark gray Alcantara strap, limited to 15 pieces worldwide at CHF 78,000 (roughly $96,063).
WatchTime
A Guide to Shinola's Updated Detrola Collection
Shinola is expanding its Detrola line with four references: the limited-production Color Theory Cool and Warm, featuring 41mm co-molded steel-and-TR90 cases, 3D-printed abstract-art dials, and a first-ever clear resin caseback, plus two permanent models (Vapor Gold and Cypress Green) that put core Detrola references on a metal bracelet for the first time. All run 41mm on the Detroit-assembled Argonite 705 quartz movement, with the Vapor Gold and Cypress Green priced at $595. The bracelet debut and gallery-inspired dials signal Shinola pushing the accessible Detrola further as its everyday-design workhorse.
Monochrome Watches
Berneron Quietly Reveals its next Chapter, The Mirage Miroir
Berneron has quietly teased the Mirage Miroir on Instagram, a 38mm gold evolution of its debut watch fitted with a multi-link gold bracelet (in yellow or white gold) rather than the previous leather strap. The novelty is the new Calibre 283, which mirrors the original Calibre 233's architecture onto the dial side, uses guilloché sectors as hour markers, and drops the dedicated seconds hand in favor of a running seconds wheel. Full details on finishing, bracelet and production are expected around Geneva Watch Days, which matters because Sylvain Berneron's deliberate scarcity play has made his releases collector catnip well before pricing is even public.
Time + Tide
Franck Muller Vanguard Damascus brings ancient technology to modern horology
Franck Muller has added two Damascus steel pieces to its Vanguard line: a solid-dial time-and-date model with a closed caseback, and a skeletonised Racing version with an exhibition back, crown guards and Damascus-cast hour markers. Both share a 42.5mm x 52.7mm x 12.6mm tonneau case, automatic movements with 42-hour power reserve at 28,800vph, and rubber straps closing on Damascus deployant clasps. The collection is available now but exclusive to South East Asia, priced at SGD $19,600 for the time-and-date and POA for the Racing.
Monochrome Watches
Porsche Design Chronograph 1 – 911 GT3 100 Jahre Nürburgring
Porsche Design marks the Nürburgring's 2027 centenary with a Chronograph 1 – 911 GT3 100 Jahre Nürburgring: a 40.8mm black-titanium-carbide-coated titanium case, COSC-certified Sellita-based Calibre WERK 01.140, and a rotor styled after the GT3's wheel, on Porsche interior leather. Limited to 100 pieces at EUR 9,950, made to order in Grenchen and available from September 2026 exclusively to buyers of the 911 GT3 100 Jahre Nürburgring. Tying the watch to a car purchase is the whole play here: it never touches the open market, so scarcity is engineered at the dealership, not the boutique.
Hodinkee
The Legare Chapter 1 AGP Inverted — The First Watch From A New Brand By Wei Koh And Guillaume Tetu
Wei Koh and Guillaume Tetu have launched a new brand, Legare, whose debut Chapter 1 AGP Inverted revives Albert-Gustave Piguet's 1932 double-balance-with-differential movement, inverted to show the train from the front, in a 37.5mm by 9.95mm grade 5 titanium case with 50m water resistance and open sapphire dials. The manually wound caliber runs at 21,600 vph with a 50-hour power reserve and comes in two finishes ("Elegant" in Geneva-striped German silver, "Darth" in matte black rhodium), each limited to 25 pieces at CHF 81,944 excluding taxes, available now via the brand. Notably, Koh (who chairs the GPHG) has pledged the watches will not compete for the prize, and the brand is unusually transparent about its Swiss supplier stack coordinated by GLS2F.
Also at: Fratello