WatchPro
Retail jobs tank as employment costs soar
UK retail employment has hit a record low, with the four-quarter average sliding to 2.78 million in the year to Q2 2026 (down 62,000 on the year and 410,000 below a decade ago), as National Insurance changes and back-to-back National Living Wage rises piled £6.5 billion in extra costs onto the sector over two years. For watch retailers running boutiques and service counters, the BRC's warning is the real signal: entry-level roles are being cut precisely where the industry needs to train its next generation of sales and after-sales staff, with the trade now lobbying to raise the NICs threshold to £6,000.
Business & Industry
WatchPro
Ulysse Nardin calls for help following break-in at its heritage museum
Thieves broke into Ulysse Nardin's Le Locle headquarters and stole three historic timepieces from its museum: a 2002 Genghis Khan tourbillon minute repeater, a 1927 Grande Complication, and an 1860 Eight-day Power Reserve pocket watch. MD Matthieu Haverlan is asking the industry and collectors to watch for the pieces, while Bulgari's Jean-Christophe Babin used the moment to blast a wave of attacks on Swiss manufactures, museums and retailers as a failure of Swiss border security. For dealers and auction houses, the appeal is a reminder that heritage provenance now doubles as a theft-tracking problem.
WatchPro
CORDER’S COLUMN: Patek Philippe is vulnerable to Rolex encroachment
Rolex's new annual calendar in precious metals, priced at £50,000 to £60,000, lands squarely on the same customer (and near-identical spec and price) as Patek Philippe's Annual Calendar Moon Phases ref. 5396R. That matters because Patek's grip is already loosening: Calatrava and Complications references trade at steep secondary discounts (up to 50% below retail on some modern grand complications) while Rolex retains value on 97 of 139 tracked references, and The Crown's push up the value chain into off-catalogue and complicated pieces signals it is coming for one of the holy trinity's core markets.
Community & Culture
Revolution Watch
Time to Drive Brings Watchmaking and Motoring to Miami
0260 is launching the Time to Drive Car & Watch Festival in Miami from November 6 to 8, 2026, co-founded by music producer Lex Borrero and media personality Perri Dash, with a track day at The Concours Club and a two-day main event at Mana Wynwood expecting 4,000-plus visitors daily. The horological draw is a 38-brand Collectors Club stacked with heavy independents (MB&F, Greubel Forsey, Urwerk, Biver, Renaud Tixier) plus Chopard, Grand Seiko and Zenith, alongside a vintage-focused Luxury Exchange. It's a bet that the car-watch collector crossover, long milked by Daytona and Mille Miglia marketing, can carry a standalone event in a US market hungry for experiential retail.
Hodinkee
Geneva Watch Days 2026
Geneva Watch Days 2026 set a participation record with 71 brands and nearly 400 new releases, yet total attendance slipped to 15,000 from last year's 17,000 peak even as it drew 2,500-plus private clients and 500-plus media. The commercial signal: the show is maturing into a more efficiently run, appointment-driven affair (more hotels, an expanded pavilion, pre-show meetings), with Breitling's House of Brands using it to relaunch Gallet and MB&F teasing the MAD 3, even as proliferating local watch weeks dilute the crowds.
Reviews
aBlogtoWatch
Kiwame Kubo Watch Review: The Japanese Darling Continues To Impress
aBlogtoWatch reviews the Kiwame Tokyo Kubo Sakura and finds it the first sign of the fast-selling Japanese brand developing real design identity, praising the embossed cherry blossom in the recessed small seconds and the 37mm case, while faulting the weak lume and the drop to 30m water resistance (down from 100m) for a reduction in size they call negligible. The trade takeaway: the $630 Kubo runs the uncommon Miyota 82S5, is currently sold out per the brand's now-familiar instant-sellout pattern, and returns for pre-order in October 2026.
New Releases
Monochrome Watches
Hublot and Jeff Koons Turn the Balloon Dog into a Watch
Hublot has turned Jeff Koons' Balloon Dog into hardware, re-engineering the Classic Fusion with domed, "inflated" surfaces, a valve-style crown and a rubber dog-tail at 10:30, powered by the HUB1710 (Zenith Elite 670 base, 50h reserve): 42mm, limited to 200 pieces per color in steel, red or blue anodised aluminium, at CHF 20,800 / EUR 24,600 / USD 25,100. The collaboration tops out with the MP-14 Origin, 30 pieces, a 44mm sapphire-and-titanium case (roughly 534 machining hours) housing Hublot's first automatic central tourbillon and 202 baguette stones (~2.6ct), for CHF 405,000. Koons remains the art-world name luxury brands reach for when they want cultural cachet at scale, and the tiered CHF 20k-to-405k spread lets Hublot monetize one collaboration across two very different collector wallets.
Also at: Watchonista · aBlogtoWatch · Revolution Watch · Hodinkee · WatchTime · Time + Tide
aBlogtoWatch
Hublot MP-14 Origin By Jeff Koons Is A Gem-Set Sapphire Watch Inspired By The Universe
Hublot has tapped Jeff Koons for a 2026 collaboration, the MP-14 Origin: a 44mm x 20mm sapphire-cased and sapphire-braceleted piece with a central tourbillon under a blue-varnished "Gazing Ball" dome, concentric 18k white gold rings set with baguette diamonds and blue sapphires, and a self-winding Caliber HUB9014 (3Hz, 60-hour reserve) driven by a peripheral rotor with fold-out crowns hidden on the titanium caseback. It is limited to 30 examples. Another artist-signed six-figure sapphire showpiece is exactly the top-of-funnel halo play Hublot leans on to keep its name in the luxury conversation.
Also at: Watchonista
SJX Watches
Singer Reimagines 1970s-Style Sports Watch
Singer Reimagined breaks from its signature cushion case with the 1970 DualTrack, an angular 40mm steel GMT (12.6mm high, 100m WR) in green, blue, or black, running the bespoke four-barrel ST5001 manual movement good for a six-day power reserve. The "caller" GMT is set via a pusher at nine advancing an inner 24-hour ring. Not a limited edition, priced at CHF 23,500 before taxes and reaching Singer retailers from October 2026.
Also at: Fratello
Monochrome Watches
The new Glashütte Original 70s Collection, a Reworked Take on the Integrated Sports Watch
Glashütte Original has revived its time-and-date Seventies as the new 70s collection: a 39mm x 39mm steel integrated sports watch, slimmed to 9.6mm, running the 100-hour Calibre 36 with silicon hairspring, dropping the Panorama Date for a conventional aperture and adding the patented Groove Lock strap system. Three variants (Vinyl Record, Tweed Amp, Stereo Panel) launch September 2026, with the Vinyl Record limited to 500 pieces at EUR 16,200/USD 16,300 and the others from EUR 13,100/USD 13,200 on rubber. It signals GO's push into the crowded steel-sports-watch tier at a price that stakes out serious territory below the integrated-bracelet giants.
Also at: Revolution Watch · WatchTime
Worn & Wound
E.C. Andersson Introduces the Timepod, with a Unique Lug Release System
E.C. Andersson, the Swedish machine-shop brand behind the cult Mytilus, has launched the Timepod: a 39mm by 39mm square case (46.6mm lug-to-lug, 11.2mm thick) with a button-activated wire-lug release system and a bevelled crystal held by six visible screws. It runs a Miyota 9075 with an independently adjustable local hour hand, is rated to 70m with a screw-down crown, and comes in Burnt Umber and Bare Metal sandwich dials. Priced at $2,155, sold via the brand's website and waitlist reservation program.</parameter> <parameter name="categories">["gmt-travel"]
Monochrome Watches
Kollokium Closes the Projekt 01 Chapter with the Luminous Variant H
Kollokium closes out its debut Projekt 01 line with Variant H, a black-dial send-off in a die-cast 316L steel case (40mm by 7mm, 11.95mm thick with crystal, 50m water resistance) whose textured raw surface is the point. The dial carries 488 hand-applied cylindrical pins in the brand's proprietary Lichtblock ceramic-resin, here dosed with Super-LumiNova BGW9 for a cyan glow, running on the La Joux-Perret G101 automatic (68-hour reserve). Limited to 399 pieces at CHF 3,888.88 excluding VAT, sold via Kollokium and selected retailers, with cream and black straps included, before the platform pivots to Projekt 02.
Monochrome Watches
The Updated Charlie Paris Concordia GMT Gets New Colours and a Much Lower Price
Charlie Paris has overhauled its Concordia GMT, swapping the Swiss Soprod C125 for Seiko's NH34 automatic GMT and dropping the entry price to EUR 645 (EUR 695 on bracelet), roughly half the outgoing model's EUR 1,195 start. The 300m dive-GMT now runs 40.5mm wide and 11.75mm thick with a double-domed sapphire crystal, five dial colours (Tundra, Antarctic Blue, Black, Burgundy, Sage), and strap options in steel, rubber, nylon, and leather. The movement swap is the whole story: it's how the French brand nearly halved its price without ceding the caller-adjustable GMT.
Monochrome Watches
The Neode N01 First Edition Brings Architectural Design to Horology
London-based Neode, founded by architect-turned-watchmaker Marius-Daniel Dumitrascu, debuts with the N01 First Edition Pure Silver: a 39.5mm Grade 5 titanium tonneau case built by Voutilainen & Cattin, a hand-finished silver dial by Les Cadraniers de Genève (the F.P. Journe-owned dial maker), and a heavily reworked Chronode C101 with twin barrels good for a 192-hour (eight-day) reserve. Limited to 25 pieces, priced at CHF 26,400 before taxes via subscription with Q2 2027 deliveries, and future versions will keep total output below 100 watches a year. The supplier roster (Voutilainen, Chronode's Jean-François Mojon, Journe's dial house) is the real headline: it signals a new independent buying credibility off the shelf of high-end Geneva's finishing ecosystem.
Time + Tide
Echo/neutra refreshes its ultra functional 1956 Chrono GMT with a dose of colour
Echo/Neutra brings back its 1956 Chrono GMT with two new colourways, Cappuccino (brown-and-taupe with turquoise accents) and Purple (deep wine with red and pink-purple accents), pairing a 12-hour chronograph with a GMT day-night function in a 40mm steel case with ceramic telemetre bezel and 100m water resistance. Both run the manually wound Sellita SW532M b Elaboré (62-hour reserve) and come on colour-matched leather straps, priced from US$2,400/€1,970 and available to pre-order now via the Time + Tide Shop and Discovery Studios in London and Melbourne.
Podcasts
Hodinkee
The Business of Watches Podcast: Hublot Chief Executive Officer Julien Tornare On Partnering With Jeff Koons And Re-Connecting With The Brand's Founder
On The Business of Watches, Hublot CEO Julien Tornare talks future strategy, a reconnection with founder Carlo Crocco ahead of the brand's 2030 50th anniversary, Jean Arnault's growing role, and a new Jeff Koons partnership, making it worth a listen for anyone tracking how LVMH plans to reposition Hublot.