Funny, when I unboxed this new Oris Aquis Calibre 400 for this review, I couldn t stop looking at the dial. I know it should be all about the in-house caliber 400, but I ll tell you that it took a few minutes before taking the watch off again to have a glance at the new Oris movement.The dial (and watch) look quite similar to their Aquis Ocean Cleanup limited edition. That watch was a bit smaller, and there are some aesthetic differences, but it just reminded me of that one. If you re a watch fanatic, you haven t missed the introduction of the new Oris movement: Calibre 400. It is interesting that Oris decided to introduce the movement first, and a few weeks later introduce the first watch t...

Welcome to the Speedmaster World Cup. In the absence of Euro 2020, we thought our beloved readers might enjoy a tournament of a different kind. We ve assembled eight groups (ACH), each governed by a different Fratello team member. Each writer has been assigned four watches, which they will pitch to you during the group stages.All we need you to do is vote for your favorite to move on in the competition. The next round will be the quarter-finals, which will see the eight group winners go head-to-head for your votes. The four winners progress to the semis. Following that, a third-place play-off will precede the final round, due to be held on Sunday, December 13th (get the beers in…).If y...

I think I have told this many times, but here it comes again; the beauty of the watch community is that it s so vast and colorful that even after many years, you ll still find new and exciting things to discover. Sometimes, thanks to the internet, these things come to you. Most of the time, I m the one hunting for new brands for our Watch Strap Review series. Other times, luckily, these brands find us and the collaboration forms. That is how today s review of the fantastic straps by Time Team Roma came into being…I have been doing this series for over six years now. I have had my fair share of exciting straps, be they exotic leather, limited edition, or future classics. But it s safe t...

What time is it? Thats right, its the 13th of the month, so that can only mean one thing for Fortis - it is time to unveil another watch. This time around, following on from the August and September releases of the Fortis F-43 BiCompax Flieger and the F-41/F-39 automatics respectively, we have another watch in this revamped Flieger series: the Fortis F-43 Triple-GMT watch.GMT complications have, for the last couple of years at least, been front and center of the watch industrys hive mind. Plenty of brands have released their take on this classic and never-more useful complication in the rollicking wake of s 2018 update of the GMT Master II with a Pepsi bezel.This new Fortis release combines ...

Welcome to the Eighties! Also known as the Greed Decade. As I came into the world in 1977, I grew up in the Eighties with all its decadence and glory. But the one aspect that has always stuck with me is its horrible style. It was big, loud, and over the top. But now, in my early forties, I have fully embraced the 1980s as an era that influenced me greatly. So creating a list of the watches from the 1980s that are still cool today was like eating a burger with David Hasselhoff: it s not always stylish, but it sure is a good time!Where to begin with a list like this? Let s lay out some basics about this, or else we will end up with an out of control party that features the members of M?tley Cr...

Sometimes, all it takes is a meeting of minds. Buoyed by an unshakable passion for creating things, Shane Tulloch has poured his heart, soul, and savings into starting his own brand. And while that is an ambitious move at the best of times, in 2020 it proved even harder. Luckily for Shane, his thoroughly planned approach reaped dividends. Having spent years accruing contacts in Switzerland, he knew who to call. With a movement brought to life by Kari Voutilainen s team, the TULLOCH T-01 has all the credibility it needs to punch above its weight.I first discovered TULLOCH in the early part of 2020. I m not going to pretend I was ahead of the curve or an early adopter or, even, particularly ex...

Ever since the first G-Shock Square was introduced in 1983, we ve seen various improvements to its movements, a.k.a. modules. Not only have there been enhancements in functionality but also in technical construction and features as well. The latest G-shock Square models now offer Bluetooth connectivity. But how useful is it really? Do these additional connected features really add value? And are they worth the extra costs compared to radio-controlled-only models?G-Shock Square ConnectedPlease bear in mind that this article is about modules used in the?beloved Square models. For other models, more capable modules exist. Larger cases allow for larger modules. Larger modules are able to house m...

In this article, I share with you my top 5 Seiko watches from the current collection that put a smile on my face.Sometimes, you d almost forget about Seiko watches with all this ongoing Grand Seiko news. Its popularity is immense and ever-growing, but what about talking about some cool Seiko watches? One of my all-time favorites would be of course the Seiko Space Walk SPS005 (click here for our review), but what about the watches you can buy today from Seiko?Top 5 modern Seiko watchesI made a selection of 5 watches from the current Seiko catalog, that I wouldn t mind adding to my modest watch collection. Without further ado, let s have a closer look.1. Seiko Prospex SLA021J1After I bought my...

Today, we ll take a look at the Girard-Perregaux Gyrodate 9080, an uncommon watch with a unique complication.Within the Fratello team, we each have our little quirks and eccentric interests when it comes to watches. I m interested in Japanese sports watches, vintage Swiss chronographs, and divers. Tomas, on the other hand, is a collector of oddball watches with funky features and complications. Just take a few seconds to look at his articles and you ll see what I mean. But today, for only a brief moment, I m taking over the mantle of madness with my account of the Girard-Perregaux Gyrodate 9080.A traditional watch with a simple twistWe don t talk a lot of vintage Girard-Perregaux here on Fra...

The Sky-Dweller has, recently, started to get a bit more of the love it perhaps deserved when it stumbled out of the blocks in 2012. For the best part of a decade, the bizarrely complicated love child of the Datejust and GMT Master II clamored for attention. With an updated dial that saw batons replace the busy numerals used in its early days, the watch began to come of age. Now, with the release of three 18-karat gold models on Oysterflex bracelets, the crown has given a new angle from which to appreciate the ugly duckling that is flourishing into a graceful swan.We ve seen the Oysterflex hit the Daytona and Yacht-Master collections before. Despite this rubber bracelet looking like a down...

In the eight years since #SpeedyTuesday first graced the internet, we have covered many Speedmaster watches and stories. One of the earliest stories we did in 2012, on the Alaska III watch we discovered, led to the first Speedy Tuesday watch produced in conjunction with Omega in 2017.But, amongst my favorite stories that you shared with us, is the Speedmaster that was found in a drawer, belonging to a grandfather who worked for the NSA. Another epic one is the story from Nick, who worked on the movie The Spy Who Loved Me in 1976 and used the money earned to purchase a new Speedmaster a year later, as his Moonwatch - that he received as a birthday gift from his father in 1971 - was stolen a f...

I feel your pain. I know it personally. That moment when you realize you simply have to spend another huge amount of cash on yet another luxury watch. Tut, tut. The anguish. The torture. And, truthfully, the privilege. Those things shouldn t go hand-in-hand but in this odd little watchmaking world we all occupy, they often seem to. But the question is, are these tempting treasures really worth the money we spend on them? Let s have a little look behind the curtain to see if it makes any sense.Part of the problem the reputation of the luxury watchmaking industry has is the continued existence of non-luxury watches. You know what I m talking about. $10 Limit watches on the local market; stylel...

Finally. This is a good one. Why do watches have jewels? This is something that has been chronically misunderstood in the past. Nowadays, it is frequently glossed-over. It is a niche within a niche. A specialist science. It is the preserve of the very few. Jewels are the first line of defence against watchmaking s age-old enemy - friction.Allow me to reiterate that point: watchmaking is a war on friction. Friction is the biggest challenge time-tinkerers the world over face. Every major development in escapement technology was conceived with the same end goal in mind - to reduce friction.Friction is what causes watches to stop. Friction is what makes the creation of a perpetual motion machine...

As far as contentious Top 5 lists go, this is about as divisive a topic as I can think of. My Top 5 watches EVER. And yeah, you really do need to SHOUT the ever. Why? Because if you go into a list like this half-cocked, you re going to misfire. You have to be 100% convinced (and bloody-minded at that) to even pretend that you know what the Top 5 es in history are. Luckily for you (and for the activity in the comments section, no doubt), I am both those things.The funny thing about anointing myself the international arbiter of watches is that I don t actually own one. I never have. I ve always wanted one, but these five watches are actually to blame for me never pulling the trigger. Why? Be...

While the major part of summer 2020 is over we still have one month to go and gear up for the beach. In case you have not had any luck adding a dive watch to your collection heres a list for you. We collected 10 awesome watches that are all under $1,000.This list is not assembled in any particular order. What connects these pieces is that they are all under 1k and all have a mechanical movement inside them. Let us know in the comments below what would be your pick for this list. It would be great to see which one comes out on top!Certina DS PH200M - $695Certina is known to produce really well-made diver watches for a reasonable price. Not only in the past but still today. Vintage Certina div...

Two For Tuesday is here with a look at two perennially hot dive watches. We have the Tudor Black Bay and its more serious rival the Pelagos.It was just a couple of weeks ago that I posed the question of whether the Tudor Submariner should return. Predictably, you sided with me and voted for its reincarnation. I guess we re vintage fans at heart here and hence the lack of a surprising outcome. But let s be brutally honest, with Tudor today compared to just 10 years ago, we are spoiled for choice. With both its Black Bay and Pelagos models, Tudor offers some pretty compelling choices.Two great dive watchesI invented Two For Tuesday in an effort to aid would-be purchasers of watches who face a ...

So here s a somewhat romantic notion: pilots, God love them, are all obsessed with expensive luxury watches. So much so, in fact, that an entire category of watches is named after them. Except that s not really true is it? Let s submit ourselves for a quick reality check so we can take this worthwhile question from the mailbag and chuck it in the trash where it belongs.Modern-day pilots do not exclusively wear pilot s watches. Pilots are, aside from incredibly important pillars of any society that embraces air travel, humans. They are people. They wear whatever the heck they please. And no, I m not being facetious - this is true. The vast majority of planes have control panels crammed full o...

10 watches that we need to erase from our memory. It wasn t an easy task, to be honest. There are more than 10 for sure… Not everyone likes the same watch. Not everyone has to like the same watch, thats perhaps even more important. But which watches really do deserve to be wiped from our memories? Let us know if you agree in the comments section below…Let me start by saying that some of these watches simply should not have existed in the first place. They were never in style, they were trouble, or just because they did the brand damage. Without further ado, lets have a go at the 10 watches we should forget about. We ll start with one of the big boys…Patek Philippe Grand Com...

Maybe it s the green, red, and gold color scheme. Maybe it s the fact the Urwerk UR-100 Gold limited edition watch looks like an alien. Or maybe it s just because I m a covert Chris DeBurg fan. Whatever it is, Urwerk s latest showstopper had me feeling festive…I m not a devout Urwerk lover. I m not one of those watch nerds that loses their mind every time the hyper-creative crackpot team of Baumgartner and Frei drop a new release. Despite that, I m rarely anything but impressed. But that always comes after digging a little deeper, looking under the hood, and taking my time to form an opinion. Because, in truth, some Urwerks are better than others. We don t have to agree on an order (it...

The full, exhaustive history of watches worn by the British Armed Forces (and all associated squadrons/units/regiments and so on) could fill several volumes. Here we will pick-up on some of the more famous watches worn by the British Army.Nowadays, military watches are incredibly popular for their no-nonsense layout and hardy construction. We often forget that it has its roots in real military conflict. In fact, the advent of wristwatches itself might well have war at its core. The British Army is one of the most famous military forces around the globe. Historic images of British Tommies have romanticized the army s reputation, which, throughout its history, has fluctuated. From the bloody t...