Just last week, I visited the Panerai boutique on New Bond Street in London, and there was a bit of a renaissance. The store was busy, and certain models were sold out. However, the staff members were friendly and happy to pull out prototype versions of popular references. Panerai is on a roll right now, and I expect that today s new Luminor Marina Bronzo will support this increased enthusiasm.Perhaps it s too early to say that 2025 marks the return of Panerai to the forefront of popularity, but there s certainly a feeling of increased interest. The brand s new CEO, Emmanuel Perrin, is doubling down on going back to basics. Guess what: it seems to be working! I went to see the black-coated M...
Its that time of year again! I have the pleasure of kicking off a new series of Fratello Favorites. This time, our writers will cover their selections of the best watches of 2025. We ll each pick our five favorites from the hundreds of watches released this year.Naturally, this makes our lists completely personal and subjective. Your mileage will surely vary. Now, without further ado, lets jump into my five winners of 2025, in no particular order!The best watches of 2025 - Pick #1: Vacheron Constantin Historiques 222 in steelLet me kick off my list of the best watches of 2025 with one you will probably see on other writers lists in the near future. Vacheron Constantin already had a winner wi...
Breguet continues to surprise us in its 250th year. In the spirit of the brands name-giver, it now presents a world first. Breguet has utilized magnets to create the first 10Hz tourbillon with a magnetic escapement, which delivers constant force to the balance, and has incorporated it into the Experimentale 1. This fast-beating tourbillon in a Breguet gold Marine case is the inaugural watch in a line of experimental R&D-focused watches to come. Future Experimantale timepieces will also honor the spirit of the greatest watchmaker of the past, Abraham-Louis Breguet.Among several inventions, Abraham-Louis Breguet gave us the tourbillon, the natural escapement, and the constant-force escapem...
The Terra Nova is Bremonts idea of a contemporary field watch. The Bremont Terra Nova 40.5 Jumping Hour Aventurine takes that concept a few steps further. Hell, it takes the idea of a field watch and transports it to a much more festive place than the trenches where the concept originated. The latest addition to the Terra Nova line, with its frosted steel case and sparkling aventurine dial, sure is a funky party piece. Its a watch that shines in the VIP section of the club because its an exclusive LE of just 50 pieces. The good thing is that, thanks to its sturdy heritage, it can easily withstand the rigors of the party scene; tough times on the dancefloor and a couple of spilled drops of th...
We often speak of the watch community as if it concerns a homogenous group of like-minded hobbyists. In reality, though, the community consists of tons of subcultures and an almost infinite spectrum of different ways to enjoy the hobby. As Fratello writers, we have the pleasure of meeting virtually all of the types of watch enthusiasts out there, online and offline. This sparked the idea to try to list the most common archetypal subcultures we come across.Now, why would we do that? To categorize people and shove them into narrow definitions? Of course not! This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I am sure no individual will feel perfectly represented by any one of the types of watch enth...
The folks at IFL Watches have made watch dials the small but very adaptable canvas for their art. We have seen a wide variety of different hand-painted dials from the brand over time. For its latest creative challenge, IFLW drew inspiration from the work of the renowned Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. To be more specific, the brand s creative team created a version of the painter s world-famous Starry Night painting. The artists used his characteristic spiral patterns to design the dials for this new Bulova Super Seville Starry Night. It s time to find out more.We ve covered quite a few IFL Watches releases over time, and the dials have often featured street-art-inspired designs. For this ne...
Today, we ll go hands-on with the limited-edition Glashtte Original PanoMaticCalendar Platinum. It s a lesson in how a watch s appearance can change drastically with a different dial and color scheme. As the name suggests, the watch is also crafted from one of my favorite stealthy precious metals.It s hard not to enjoy Glashtte Original s watches. After all, they exhibit fine finishing and always display traits from the region. Yes, most of the pieces are on the larger side, but that s desirable for a large part of the watch-consuming population. With the new PanoMaticCalendar Platinum, the watch blends two of my favorite hues with a skeletonized dial and legible complications. Shall we ha...
This new MoonSwatch Mission to Earthphase Moonshine Gold will become available on December 4th. However, after that date, this MoonSwatch model will be available only when the Swiss see snowflakes. Though it will be for sale at select Swatch boutiques worldwide, it will be subject to local weather conditions in Switzerland. And the sales of this new MoonSwatch will end on March 20th, 2026, when winter comes to an end.MoonSwatch Mission to Earthphase Moonshine GoldI dont think I have heard of a similar sales strategy before. Still, assuming there will be snow sometime between December 5th and March 20th, there s a somewhat higher probability that these watches will be available than those tha...
In 2020, Wempe presented the Iron Walker family of watches. The retailers in-house brand, Wempe Glashtte, manufactures these watches to expand Wempes offerings in the popular class of steel watches featuring a sporty design with an integrated bracelet. The Iron Walker family comprises slightly sporty (Automatic and GMT), sportier (Chronograph), and fully sporty (Diver) watches. Now, the brand extends the last category with a new model no longer made of steel. The new Diver has a bronze case. And because this new member of that family looks rather attractive, I had to go hands-on with it.Why a bronze watch?The name Iron Walker suggests steel, the material of all other Iron Walker models. But...
Theres something quietly satisfying about wearing a GMT watch when you travel. It adds a bit of ceremony to the start of a trip, even if you are only hopping across Europe. I took the Alcadus Voyager Worldtimer GMT on holiday with me to Rhodes simply because I liked the look of it and wanted something straightforward for a week in the sun. I wasnt expecting to rely on the GMT function, but I was curious to see how the watch would behave in a setting where it would be worn all day, every day, without any special treatment. After all, you can t beat real-world testing, can you?Once I arrived, the Alcadus Voyager Worldtimer GMT settled onto my wrist far more naturally than I expected. It handle...
Welcome to a new installment of Sunday Morning Showdown! This week, we pit two very similar watches from two very dissimilar segments against each other. The Tudor Ranger Dune White takes on the much cheaper Christopher Ward C65 Dune Aeolian Sand. Well see if the $2,425 price gap makes sense.Daan will take the Tudors side, and Thomas will defend the Christopher Ward. Lets see how they fare!But first, last weeks resultsBut, of course, we ll first take a look at last weeks Sunday Morning Showdown. This was a controversial one, as we put the new Omega Planet Ocean up against the Submariner. The won with a significant 61% of the votes against 39% for the Omega.The matchup was clearly contentio...
Last month, Mike brought you the details of a new 40mm Panerai Luminor in ceramic. That was the first time Panerai applied ceramic to a 40mm case. Well, the brand has already pulled the veil off an extension to that model with the PAM01783, featuring a deep blue dial. This new Luminor GMT Ceramica is a limited edition of 80 pieces exclusively available on Panerais e-commerce platform. With the inaugural 40mm Ceramica being a serial-production model, this new blue PAM01783 is targeted at collectors seeking a rare find. Is the blue dial enough to tempt more onlookers? Lets dive in.A 40mm case may seem average for the watch industry. However, for Panerais outsized divers watches, it s on the sm...
La Bazoche-Gou?t is a small town in the French Loire Valley. Today, roughly 1,215 people live there. In 1815, the number of inhabitants could have been a bit higher or a bit lower, but its safe to say that La Bazoche-Gou?t was never a bustling hub of activity. It is a beautiful spot, though. The Loire Valley is known for its historic towns, including Orleans and Tours, as well as its world-famous castles, such as the Chateau de Chambord. The region, also called the Garden of France, is renowned for its fertile landscape. When Jean-Adrien Philippe was born in La Bazoche-Gou?t, his destiny could have been to become an artichoke farmer. Despite that, because his father was a watchmaker, he also...
Another Friday, another list! However, it s not just any random list, as we kick off our look back at 2025 with this compilation. In this first installment of the year s highlights, we take a look at dive watches. This has been the most popular watch category in recent times, so it is hard to pick just five out of the many watches that come out in any given year. But we have to do it, as those are the rules of these year-end lists. So let s find out what our five favorite dive watches of 2025 are.Before we get into our picks, it s worth pointing out that it wasn t a big year for dive watches. Sure, you will always find a solid number of excellent releases, but the times when dive watches wer...
Today, we ll go hands-on with the latest Brellum release. The Pandial Power Reserve Black Titanium LE Chronometer builds upon this month s earlier introduction of a similar model in steel. Considering that this is the brand s most feature-laden watch, it s worth taking a closer look.With such small production runs, Brellum maintains an aggressive release schedule. Limited editions, which often number below 50, are typical. This allows the brand to remain fresh, agile, and communicative with its customer base. Another typical trait of Brellum s watches is that they re often larger than the smaller watches that are currently on trend. That s okay, though, because there s still a healthy demand...
Kuoe (pronounced like quo) is not a brand that we have featured in a dedicated article before here on Fratello. However, it has been on our radar for some time. My Fratello colleague Gerard has been interested in the Japanese brand for some time and featured its Old Smith 90-002 in a list of his favorite watches under $1,000. Now we have the opportunity to explore a new series of watches that Kuoe kindly sent us for review. The new Royal Smith 90-012 Chronographs constitute the brand s first trio of automatic chronographs. It s an interesting new series, and I was happy to find out more about it.Looking at the Kuoe catalog, we find an interesting mix of retro-style quartz and mechanical watc...
As much as I would have loved to call the Louis Vuitton Escale Malachite a hard-rocking watch, I can t. Thats because malachite has a Mohs hardness between 3.5 and 4.0, and thats considered soft. So, there you have it: the Escale Malachite is a soft-rocking watch, but thats okay. The exclusive character of this watch, which features a dial and a case band in the remarkable green natural stone, as well as precious platinum elements, doesnt fit the music you headbang to. This watch is best enjoyed with a bit of Air Supply playing softly on the stereo while sipping on a nice glass of the bubbly stuff. I went hands-on without all of that, but I still got a good sense of what this watch is all ab...
A few weeks ago, on a cool autumn morning in Bologna, I found myself wandering through a vintage market tucked between porticoed streets and the kind of cafes where the espresso machine never sleeps. Among boxes of old coins, war-era postcards, and lovingly worn leather jackets, a couple of small steel items caught my eye - two watches lying side by side in a burgundy box embossed with a golden script - Perseo.This wasnt my first encounter with Italian watches made for the Ferrovie dello Stato, or FS for short. Ive written before about my Universal Geneve FS, a watch issued to Italian State Railway personnel and a piece I cherish for its blend of industrial purpose and quiet elegance. That f...
Take a good look at the steel Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classic Monoface Small Seconds in the pictures. What do you see? Exactly - a watch you didnt think was a novelty. But it is. This medium-sized Reverso has all the trademarks of a traditional Reverso, along with a couple of updated tweaks. We go hands-on to find out what exactly those updates are and how this reversible icon wears.The steel Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Classic Monoface Small Seconds is a classic in every sense. The dial decoration, small seconds, Arabic numerals, and, of course, the sword hands in blued steel, are trademarks of a traditional Reverso. However, the watch might appear to have always been here, but it hasnt. The ...
Over the last few weeks, we ve seen an unseasonal deluge of watch releases, with brands big and small unveiling fresh pieces at an incessant pace. Today, on Fratello Talks, we re taking a moment to look back at some highlights and reflect on what stood out to us. Nacho, RJ, and Thomas are on the microphones to break down a diverse array of novelties and share their thoughts on emerging trends. Notable launches include several debuts tied to Dubai Watch Week 2025, which displayed the biennial event s growth in scale and relevance. Were also exploring the new fourth-generation Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean models, which introduce meaningful updates to one of the brands most recognizable collect...
