Watches & Wonders 2023
Let the games begin – from A. Lange & Sohne to Zenith, the first new releases have landed, with more to come. Here’s an initial look at the first drops.
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Watches & Wonders, the world’s biggest horological tradeshow, has arrived to deliver the year’s hottest new releases from the top luxury watchmakers.
So far, it’s shaping up to be a year in which many brands are revisiting established classics or recently minted heroes. Just before the show opened to journalists and retailers on Monday, several brands released a multitude of first looks, many of them familiar takes on memorable designs. A. Lange & Söhne revisited its one and only sports model, the Odysseus, and updated it with its first in-house automatic movement. Cartier rendered its Tank Normale anew, including a few complex skeletonised versions. Now that it’s achieved a laundry list of world records for the Octo Finissimo, Bulgari decided to focus on its Octo Roma collection and revealed two particularly elevated tourbillon models. And Van Cleef & Arpels delivered another round of the extraordinary table clocks that wowed the crowds at last year’s fair, which will please any very well-heeled clients that couldn’t get their hands on the $1 million-plus museum-worthy pieces.
There will, of course, be more to come. While Patek Philippe released images of a revamped Calatrava, its other releases (as well as Rolex’s breathlessly awaited new watches) will be shared later on Monday morning. For now, here’s a taste of what’s in store for watch enthusiasts this year.
A. LANGE & SÖHNE
A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus Chronograph
The esteemed German watchmaker is doubling down on its 4-year-old Odysseus collection of steel sport models with the debut of a timepiece featuring the manufacture’s first automatic chronograph movement. Limited to 100 pieces, the new chronograph places a premium on precision and legibility. Powered by the new L156.1 calibre, which incorporates an ingenious mechanism for resetting the chronograph hand to zero, the piece is marked by a combination of brushed surfaces and chamfered edges that emphasise its openness, as well as a dial architecture designed to create the illusion of depth.
Case Size: 42.5 mm
Case Material: Stainless steel
Power Reserve: 50 hours
Straps: Stainless steel bracelet
BULGARI
Bulgari Octo Roma Blue/Anthracite/White
Bulgari’s Octo Roma collection reimagines many typical watchmaking tropes through the lens of Italian flair, incorporating octagonal shapes reminiscent of ancient Roman buildings and offering a case shape that feels distinctly fresh and compelling. Expanding the basic, time-and-date Roma model this year, Bulgari is adding blue, anthracite, and white-dialed models to the lineup, each of which includes the beautiful clous de Paris motif. (This pattern, which appears as a series of small pyramids, can be found on numerous high-end timepieces from various brands.)
Each model comes in a 41 mm Octo Roma case and is powered by the automatic Calibre BVL 191 movement with a power reserve of 42 hours. Equipped with hands and indices that pop against the textured dial via a liberal coating of Super-LumiNova, each ships with both a matching rubber strap and the collection’s signature stainless steel bracelet. With its sophisticated case architecture and new, eye-catching dial design, the Octo Roma has become a competitive entry in the luxury sports watch genre that any die-hard—and even jaded—watch guy or gal would be proud to own.
Case Size: 41 mm
Movement: Bulgari Calibre BVL 191 automatic
Power Reserve: 42 hours
Bulgari Octo Roma Chronograph
Debuting this year within the Octo Roma collection is a new chronograph whose design cues may be familiar to some from the complication’s presence within the Octo Finissimo family. Powered by the automatic, in-house Calibre BVL 399 movement—which is visible via a sapphire caseback—it features a triple-register chronograph display with a 30-minute counter, a 12-hour counter, and a running seconds counter, plus a date window at 4:30. Subtly integrated chronograph pushers, a crown flanked by dual crown guards, and case architecture boasting a mix of polished and brushed surfaces make for a visually compelling look.
The visual star of the show is the same clous de Paris motif from the time-and-date models, available in white, anthracite, or blue and featuring a liberal coating of Super-LumiNova for nighttime legibility. Measuring 12.4mm thick and water resistant to 100m, the Octo Roma Chronograph ships on a beautiful stainless steel bracelet and also comes with a rubber strap that matches the watch’s dial colour. With its striking aesthetics, beautifully designed case, in-house movement, and multiple straps, it’s a tempting alternative to something like the Speedmaster, Daytona, or an El Primero.
Case Size: 42 mm
Movement: Bulgari Calibre BVL 399 Automatic
Power Reserve: 42 hours
Bulgari Octo Roma Precious Tourbillon Lumière
A ladies’ offering, the Octo Roma Precious Tourbillon Lumière competes squarely with any Octo men’s watch for sheer horological firepower but pairs it with a positively breathtaking case with more diamonds than a De Beers showroom. Measuring 38mm in rose gold, it’s set with no less than 267 round, brilliant-cut diamonds, plus a bezel set with 48 more—plus a rose gold crown set with a cabochon-cut ruby. (And if that isn’t enough diamonds and precious metal for you, you should consider moving into Buckingham Palace, because you may very well be the Queen of England.)
And on to the timekeeping: Powered by the manually wound, skeletonised Calibre BVL 208, it features small, central hands poised above a tourbillon housed at 6 o’clock. The rose gold movement is entirely hand decorated and boasts 64 hours of power reserve—more than enough to power it through the weekend. The dial itself is set with diamonds and nine brilliant-cut rubies to indicate the hours—in case you needed more bling. (Total carat count: ~5.05 for the diamonds, and ~0.18 for the rubies.) Paired with a red alligator strap with a diamond-set folding buckle, this is surely a timepiece for the woman who has everything else.
Case Size: 38 mm
Movement: Panerai Calibre BVL 208 Hand-Wound
Power Reserve: 64 hours
Octo Roma Precious Naturalia
Joining the Octo lineup is a precious metal doozy of a timepiece machined from gold and equipped with a flying tourbillon for good measure. Dubbed the Octo Roma Precious Naturalia, it celebrates the natural beauty of tiger’s eye, which is used in the construction of the dial indices. (More on that in a moment.) Housed in a 44mm, satin-brushed rose gold case measuring 11.35mm tall and water resistant to 50m, its stunning, skeletonised dial features a tiger’s eye plate with ample brown and gold accents, plus thin shavings of the same material that cover each of the 13 dial indices. Because of the unique properties of the stone, each dial is a one-of-a-kind piece of art.
Completing the gold aesthetic of the dial is a set of skeletonised hands and a flying tourbillon situated above 6 o’clock, plus a fully visible gear train. Powered by the manually wound, in-house BVL 206 movement with 64 hours of power reserve and paired with a brown alligator strap with a rose gold folding buckle, this is most certainly not a watch for someone who wants to fly under the radar—rather, it’s a prominent statement piece meant to exhibit every last ounce of Bulgari’s watchmaking savoir faire.
Case Size: 44 mm
Movement: Panerai BVL 206 Hand-Wound
Power Reserve: 64 hours
Bulgari Octo Roma Papillon Tourbillon and Striking Tourbillon Sapphire
For those for whom the standard Octo Roma offerings are insufficiently avant-garde, may we introduce the Octo Roma Striking Tourbillon Sapphire, which includes a unique complication: Housed in a 44mm titanium case with black DLC coating, it features a crown with a special push-button device at 3 o’clock. Engage this button, and a small red dot in the winding stem indicates that the crown can now be adjusted. Re-engage the button and the time setting is now deactivated, and the crown can be used for manual winding of the tourbillon-equipped movement.
With its completely transparent sapphire dial, mid-case, and back, the watch’s skeletonised movement—the Calibre BVL 206 with 64 hours of power reserve—is on full display. Bright green Super-LumiNova-filled indices and a white-tipped handset discreetly handle time-telling duties, while the flying tourbillon is situated above 6 o’clock. With its rubberised, black alligator strap with green stitching and titanium folding buckle, this futuristic offering is one of the standout models in the current Octo Roma collection, and proof that the Octo Finissimo line isn’t the only place where Bulgari’s most innovative watchmaking can be found.
Case Size: 44mm
Movement: Bulgari Calibre BVL 206 Hand-Wound
Power Reserve: 64 hours
Bulgari Octo Roma Striking Papillon Tourbillon
Sticking with the black DLC titanium theme, we have a striking-looking—(actually, “striking” is even in the name)—piece, also with a flying tourbillon, but with the addition of a special minute display and a jumping hour display. Dubbed the Octo Roma Striking Papillon Tourbillon and housed in a semi-tactical, very futuristic looking 44 mm Octo case measuring 11.9 mm thick and featuring a sapphire mid-case, its dial looks like something out of a cool science fiction novel.
A mix of blacks and greens and transparent surfaces, the dial features a central tourbillon with a jumping hour display poised above it, plus a semi-circular minute display below. Along this display traverses a “butterfly” minute counter with dual, diamond-shaped hands—once the first counter reaches the end of the 60-minute display, the hands rotate 180 degrees, and the secondary hand retraces the path back along the arc. Powered by the hand-wound Calibre BVL 348 movement with 60 hours of power reserve and lit with plenty of Super-LumiNova, it’s paired with a rubberised black alligator strap with green stitching and a titanium folding buckle.
Case Size: 44 mm
Movement: Bulgari Calibre BVL 348 Hand-Wound
Power Reserve: 60 hours
CARTIER
Cartier Privé
For the past seven years, Cartier has selected a historic model from its archives (say, the Crash, the Tank Cintrée, or the Cloche), given it a fresh new design spin, and marketed it as a numbered and limited edition under its sought-after Cartier Privé label, a “collector’s collection,” as the brand calls it.
New to Privé this year, the Tank Normale offers seven takes on Cartier’s defining timepiece, the 1917 Tank. They include an hour/minute version—in yellow gold with a brown alligator strap or in platinum with a black alligator strap—that takes its proportions and beveled sapphire crystal from the original, as well as a complicated and skeletonised model that features a 24-hour complication marked by a sun and crescent moon, in either yellow gold or platinum (the latter available with or without diamonds). And in a groovy nod to 1970s style, the collection for the first time includes two models that come on yellow gold or platinum bracelets.
Case Size: 32.6 mm x 25.7 mm for the basic Tank Normale; 35.2 mm x 27.8 mm for the skeletonised version
Case Material: 18k yellow gold and platinum
Power Reserve: 36-38 hours
Straps: Alligator straps in grey, brown, blue, and black, and 18k yellow gold and platinum bracelets
Clash [Un]Limited
![Cartier Clash [Un]Limited](https://robbreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/CAR_CRWJMB0004_CCS_01_01_TC_2404939.png?w=300)
Between its stylish mix of round and square shapes, and intriguing juxtaposition of faceted corners and beveled dials, the new Clash [Un]Limited watch evokes the legacy of Jeanne Toussaint, the legendary designer who, as director of Cartier’s high jewelry department from 1933 to 1970, “dared to provoke glittering collisions between preciousness and the industrial aesthetic of ball bearings,” according to a press release.
All five quartz-powered variations of the Clash [Un]Limited revel in contrasts (say, between brushed and satin finishes), but none as unexpectedly as the coloured stone version, which comes in an enchanting gem-set case distinguished by surprising pairings of brilliant white diamonds, bright red coral, and mint green chrysoprase.
Case Size: 18.4 x 32.7 mm for the small models
Case Material: 18k yellow, rose, white and purple gold
Straps: 18k yellow, rose, white, and purple gold bracelets
Santos-Dumont
Cartier’s sextet of new Santos-Dumont styles includes a trio of manual-wind XL models in platinum, rose gold, and yellow gold. The standout features are dials decorated with Roman numerals cut directly in jasper, jade, and dumortierite, to match the colours of the cabochons on the winding crowns.
For anyone who enjoys gazing at a complex movement, the Santos-Dumont Skeleton watch—available in a case made of yellow gold, rose gold, or steel—is just the ticket.
Case Size: 46.6 mm x 33.9 mm for colourful versions, 31 mm for skeleton edition
Case Material: 18k rose gold, 18k yellow gold and platinum
Straps: Alligator straps in green, blue, grey, burgundy, and brown
Santos de Cartier
The storied Santos line now includes three models featuring deeply saturated dials in green and navy blue, coated in a thin layer of tinted lacquer and applied by hand.
Case Size: 35.1 mm for the two medium models, and 39.8 mm for the large
Case Material: Steel
Straps: Interchangeable straps in steel and alligator
Tank
For more than a century, the Tank watch by Cartier, not to mention the family of timepieces it spawned, has adorned the wrists of the global elite. No wonder the Maison is perpetually recreating it. This year sees updates to three classic Tank models: the Tank Américaine, the Tank Française, and the Tank Louis Cartier.
The Tank Américaine was born in 1989 when the maison introduced a slender version of the model in a gently curved case reminiscent of the Tank Cintrée. For 2023, the house revisited the Tank Américaine in 11 new styles (nine featuring quartz movements) designed to be even slimmer. Available in all-gold and steel with a leather strap, rose gold and diamonds with a leather strap or diamond-paved white and rose gold with a metal bracelet, the Tank Américaine is proof that thin is perennially in.
The Tank Française made its debut in 1996 in a chic metal bracelet style. Now, the quartz-powered steel watch features a revamped bracelet with a gentle curve to fit all wrists. Note the diamond-set brancards, which play off the model’s polished finishes and sunray-brushed dial.
In 1921, Cartier widened the Tank’s case, refined its brancards and softened its edges to create the Tank Louis Cartier. New for this year is an LC model in yellow or rose gold on an alligator strap with a graphic motif on the dial rendered in three shades of gold—an homage to the Tank Must dials of the 1970s. The Tank Louis Cartier also comes in two minimalist coloured dial editions: one in lacquered burgundy and the other in a Platonic green, both encased in yellow gold. All three models feature the manual winding 1917 MC movement.
Case Size: 28 mm x 15.2 mm for the Tank Américaine mini, 35.4 mm x 19.4 mm for the Tank Américaine small, 44.4 mm x 24.4 mm for the Tank Américaine large, 25.7 mm x 21.2 mm for the Tank Française small, 32 mm x 27 mm for the Tank Française medium and 33.7 mm x 25.5 mm for the Tank Louis Cartier
Case Material: Steel, 18k yellow gold, 18k rose gold, 18k white gold
Straps: Alligator straps in dark blue, dark brown, red, grey, taupe and green
CHANEL
J12 Eclipse Box Set
Taken together, this set of seven watches, each a piece unique, is the horological equivalent of a solar eclipse. From the first watch, in all white ceramic, to the seventh watch, in all black, the timepieces—which come equipped with automatic calibers certified by the Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute—are gradually eclipsed by a black band that grows wider with each successive model.
Case Size: 38 mm
Case Material: Matte black and white ceramic
Power Reserve: 70 hours
Straps: Matte black and white ceramic bracelet
Monsieur de Chanel Tourbillon
The fragment of meteorite that forms the dial of this striking black ceramic timepiece isn’t its only distinctive element. Set atop the cage of the flying tourbillon—marking the first time the Monsieur watch has featured the complication—is a lion head décor plate depicting the maison’s emblem. With the passing of each second, it spins in all its leonine majesty.
Case Size: 42 mm
Case Material: Matte black ceramic and steel
Power Reserve: 72 hours
Straps: Black nylon strap with black calfskin trim and lining
CHOPARD
Chopard L.U.C 1963 Heritage Chronograph
Hand-wound chronographs are prized among collectors, and Chopard’s contribution to this elite genre, a 25-piece limited-edition flyback chronograph with Geneva Seal certification, is likely to disappear fast. The L.U.C 1963 Heritage Chronograph has a minimalist, no-date dial, and a case made of Lucent steel, Chopard’s proprietary steel alloy made of 80% recycled elements. Vintage details include the car-dashboard-style hour markers from 05-60 for chronograph minutes and seconds, along with mushroom-shaped pushers and eco-green dial with matching stitching on the strap. Modern technology allows for a sapphire caseback through which to admire the decorated movement, the star of the show (sapphire crystals weren’t around in the ’60s). The Chopard hand-wound flyback chronograph caliber L.U.C 03.07-L is chronometer certified, with a 60-hour power reserve. Finishes include rhodium-plated bridges, yokes, levers and column wheel, circular graining for the base, straight-graining for the chronograph components and a Côtes de Genève motif on the bridges.
Case Size: 42 mm by 14.55 mm
Case Material: Lucent steel
Power Reserve: 60 hours
Straps: Brown calfskin, green lining, green bridle stitching with pin buckle
Mille Miglia Classic Chronograph
Chopard loves its traditions, and the annual Mille Miglia collector’s edition is one of is most enduring. Chopard has been timing the scenic race from Brescia to Rome since 1988 and co-President Karl-Friedrich Scheufele has personally taken part in the race every year since, covering more than 30,000 competition miles. This year’s edition, the 36th in the annual series, is slightly smaller than others, at 40.5mm, which makes it a little more wearable (and perfect for a ladies’ wrist!).
The case, bezel and crowns are made of Lucent steel, a Chopard alloy that it says is 50% harder than conventional steel. There are four dial colour options, matched to the paintwork and interiors of classic cars: Verde Chiaro (light green) and Rosso Amarena (cherry red), Nero Corsa (racing black) and, on a two-tone steel and gold model, Grigio-Blue (grey blue). A tachymeter scale is essential for calculating speed and distances, and plenty of Grade XI Super-LumiNova helps to navigate after dark. A slim bezel maximises the depth of the dial.
Case Size: 40.5 mm by 12.88 mm
Case Material: Lucent steel or Lucent steel and 18k rose gold
Power Reserve: 54 hours
Straps: Black rubber with 1960s Dunlop racing tire motif or calfskin leather.
Chopard Imperiale
The lotus flower is the signature motif of Chopard’s Imperiale collection. The model was launched in 1994, and the lotus motif has appeared in various ways on its dials, cases, crowns and movements ever since. In 2017, Chopard won the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in the jewelry category with the Lotus Blanc, with diamond-set petals opening and closing at will on the dial. The new Imperiale depicts the lotus flower with overlapping petals within a polished rose gold lacework. Some of the gold petals are engraved and satin-brushed. These openworked petals are positioned against a disk that rotates once every 24 hours to represent night and day. After midnight, the star-studded sapphire dome representing night gives way to morning light represented by a white diamond sky. It was created using several artisanal techniques, starting with a mother-of-pearl disk that is lacquered in a cerulean gradient that, at night time, is decorated with seven gold-powder stars. Sapphires in six gradient shades of blue express the transition from day to night. Snow-set diamonds represent the daytime sky. The steady motion of the disk is driven by the L.U.C 96.30-L, with a 65-hour power reserve. Case, horns, bezel and inner dial ring are set with diamonds.
Case Size: 36 mm by 10.15 mm
Case Material: 18k rose gold
Power Reserve: 65 hours
Straps: Seamless blue pearlescent alligator with 18k gold pink buckle
Alpine Eagle 41 XPS
Chopard has been beefing up its Alpine Eagle collection recently, instilling the sporty model with complications and high watchmaking finishes. The new 41 XPS is a chronometer-certified, with a small seconds indicator, and is finished to the standards of the Poinçon de Genève. The ultra-thin (8mm) case is made of Lucent steel A223, which Chopard ays is ultra-resistant and takes a high polish, and it’s made of 85% recycled materials. Double barrels driving the flagship caliber L.U.C 96.40-L ensure a 65-hour power reserve. The “monte rose pink” dial is named for the second-highest mountain range in the Swiss Alps, and their characteristic pinkish shimmer. It resembles the salmon tint that is so popular in high-end sports watches at the moment. The finish is inspired by the eagle’s iris. It can be admired on a larger plane than previous models, since the bezel of this one is trimmed back.
Case Size: 41 mm by 8 mm
Case Material: Lucent steel A223
Power Reserve: 65 hours
Straps: Lucent steel A223 bracelet
GRAND SEIKO
Grand Seiko Masterpiece Collection Spring Drive 8-Day SBGD213
Every ounce of Grand Seiko’s watchmaking prowess is on display in the new SBGD213: a Spring Drive-powered masterpiece, it’s hand-set with 5.62 carats’ worth of diamonds, and 1.25 carats of blue sapphires. Housed in a truly magnificent, highly angular, Zaratsu-polished platinum case recalling the lion—Grand Seiko’s spirit animal, so to speak—it features 112 diamonds along its upper surfaces and a further 60 baguette-cut stones along the bezel. Even the crown is inset with a brilliant-cut sapphire that matches perfectly the deep blue colour of the dial.
Speaking of the dial: blue sapphires and baguette diamonds—each of which has been set by hand between pairs of 18K white gold rails—form the hour and minute indices. Executed by the Shinshu Watch Studio in the Shiojiri facility in Nagano prefecture, they make for a stunning display, and are further joined by an additional 48 diamonds and 12 blue sapphires around their periphery. Flipping the watch over reveals the Spring Drive movement sat beneath a sapphire caseback: With its one-piece bridge and Mt. Fuji-inspired design, the Caliber 9R01 is accurate to an impressive +/- 10 seconds per month and offers an 8-day power reserve due to three barrels arranged in sequence.
Case Size: 44.5 mm
Movement: Grand Seiko Caliber 9R01 Hand-Wound
Power Reserve: 8 days
Grand Seiko Masterpiece Collection Hand-engraved Manual-winding Spring Drive Limited Edition SBGZ009
A special limited-edition model within the Masterpiece Collection, the new SBGZ009 features a stunning, fully engraved case executed by hand in the town of Shiojiri by elite Grand Seiko craftsmen. Inspired by a forest of white birch trees at the foot of the North Yatsugatake Mountains in the eastern part of Shinshu, it’s housed in a 38.5mm platinum case and paired to a silver dial.
Superb craftsmanship characterises this timepiece: each case is polished to a distortion-free sheen via the Zaratsu technique, after which it’s hand engraved with individual grooves by engravers at the Shinshu Watch Studio. A silver dial in the brand’s beautiful birch pattern is joined by 14K white gold, diamond-cut hour markers, plus a handset with curved minute and seconds hands and a minute track that’s carved into the dial periphery. Powered by the manually wound Spring Drive Caliber 9R02 with an 84-hour power reserve, it’s accurate to an incredible one second per day, and comes paired to a black crocodile strap with three-fold clasp and push button release.
Case Size: 38.5mm
Movement: Grand Seiko Spring Drive Caliber 9R02
Power Reserve: 84 hours
Grand Seiko Evolution 9 Collection Tentagraph SLGC001
A truly notable release, the Evolution 9 Collection Tentagraph SLGC001 is Grand Seiko’s first mechanical chronograph. An entry within the Evolution 9 sports watch collection, it’s powered by the 9SC5, which chirps along at 10 beats per second and features dual barrels for a power reserve of three days, even when the chronograph is in operation—making it, according to GS’s research, the 10-beat chronograph with the longest power reserve on the market. Tested for 20 days to ensure that it meets the Grand Seiko Standard of +5 to -3 seconds per day, it’s also highly accurate and thoughtfully engineered.
Housed in a Zaratsu-polished 43.2mm titanium case with a box-shaped sapphire crystal featuring anti-reflective coating, paired to a matching bracelet with a three-fold clasp with push button release, and complemented with a screw-down crown and a sapphire case back, the Tentagraph has a handsome dial to match its impressive construction and movement: Executed in a blue “Mt. Iwate” pattern, it boasts a triple-register chronograph display, a date window at 4:30, beautifully polished, applied indices and hands, and a black ceramic bezel with a tachymeter scale. Not bad for a first effort at a mechanical chronograph!
Case Size: 43.2 mm
Movement: Grand Seiko 9SC5
Power Reserve: 72 hours
HUBLOT
Big Bang Integrated Tourbillon Automatic Full Texalium-Carbon
Whether one loves or hates its case silhouettes, there’s simply no denying that Hublot is at the cutting edge of what it terms “the art of fusion”—integrating disparate materials that come together in a cohesive whole to tell a uniquely contemporary horological story. This year, this fusion has been put on full display in the form of the Big Bang Integrated Tourbillon Automatic Full Texalium-Carbon, a watch that surely knows few equals with regard to aesthetics, engineering, or creativity.
Measuring 43mm in ultra-lightweight carbon fiber, the watch is coated in Taxalium, a material that integrates fiberglass in a resin core with a thin layer of aluminum for increased impact resistance. Paired with a specially fabricated Texalium and carbon fiber strap that weighs just 26 grams and features individually machined and finished links, the Integrated Tourbillon Automatic is powered by the HUB6035 Manufacture Calibre movement, which features a micro-rotor and tourbillon as well as a 72-hour power reserve. With its mesmerizing looks, incredible engineering, and lightweight construction, it’s surely one of the standout references in the Big Bang lineup.
Case Size: 43 mm
Movement: Hublot HUB6035 Manufacture Calibre Automatic
Power Reserve: 72 hours
Big Bang MP-13 Tourbillon Bi-Axis Bi-Retrograde Titanium
2023 marks the entry of several firsts into the Hublot catalog, the latest of which is impossible to miss: the new 44mm Big Bang MP-13 Tourbillon Bi-Axis Bi-Retrograde Titanium is an absolute bruiser of a watch combining—for the first time in the brand’s history—a tourbillon and retrograde display in one timepiece. And not just any tourbillon, mind you: Hublot’s status as a completely integrated manufacture has allowed it to develop a bi-axis tourbillon entirely in-house, a considerable horological feat. (The tourbillon makes one rotation every minute on one axis, and one rotation every 30 seconds on its second axis).
Skeletonised and suspended without the use of an upper movement bridge, this impressive complication—and the HUB6200 manually wound movement housing it—is visible via anti-reflective sapphire crystal on both sides of the case. An impressive 96-hour power reserve ensures that the mesmerizing tourbillon can run for days without the need for winding. Limited to just 50 numbered pieces, it’s made of satin-finished and polished titanium and comes paired to a black rubber strap.
Case Size: 44 mm
Movement: Hublot HUB6200 Manufacture Calibre Manual Winding
Power Reserve: 96 hours
Big Bang Square Unico Sapphire
Building upon the success of 2022’s Square Big Bang Unico, Hublot is expanding the collection with a unique sapphire variant meant to showcase the brand’s tremendous savoir faire and expertise with cutting-edge materials. Part of a limited run of 250 pieces, this impressive, transparent timepiece has a water resistance of 50m despite the challenges of engineering not only a square case but one machined from multi-layered sapphire. Powered by an in-house movement dubbed the HUB1280, it features a 72-hour power reserve, automatic winding, and a column wheel flyback chronograph complication. All of this impressive clockwork can, of course, be admired via the watch’s openwork dial and sapphire case.
Fitted to a rubber strap with a titanium deployant clasp, the Big Bang Square Unico Sapphire is further joined by two sister references in black or white ceramic, which are powered by the same movement, but aren’t limited editions. Each watch features the “One Click” system, meaning its straps can easily be swapped out for other Hublot bracelets.
Case Size: 50 mm
Movement: Hublot HUB1280 Manufacture Calibre Automatic
Power Reserve: 72 hours
IWC
IWC Ingenieur Automatic 40
IWC is reviving the Ingenieur Reference 1832, along with the man who created it, Gerald Genta, the maestro of watch design. The Ingenieur (“engineer” in French) was IWC’s ultimate answer to the Asian-invasion of affordable quartz watches and the decline of traditional gold dress watches in the 1970s. An early version of the Ingenieur was introduced in the late ’50s, but the model really came into its own when IWC decided to enlist Genta in the 1970s to redesign it according to the spirit of the times. His brief was to create a robust yet elegant steel sports watch that would be accessible and unique. In 1976, Genta delivered the SL ref. 1832 Ingenieur in a 40mm steel case with an integrated steel bracelet, a checkerboard-pattern dial and a distinctive screw-on bezel with five recesses. Because 40mm seemed huge at the time, the watch was nicknamed the “Jumbo.” Genta had already designed Audemars Piguet’s now-iconic Royal Oak by then, and would go on to design Patek Philippe’s legendary Nautilus a year later. The new Ingenieur Automatic 40 is a tribute to the original 40mm Jumbo. Updates include a slightly curved case ring and a redesigned bracelet with closed links and no visible pins. On the original bezel, the screws were decorative, but on the new one, the five screws secure the bezel to the case ring, so they have a technical function as well. The dial has the same grid pattern as the original. Dial options include black, silver-plated or aqua. All contain the IWC-manufactured 32111 caliber with a power reserve of 72 hours.
Case Size: 40 mm
Case Material: Stainless steel
Power Reserve: 72 hours
Straps: stainless steel bracelet with butterfly folding clasp
MONTBLANC
1858 Unveiled Secret Minerva Monopusher Chronograph Limited Edition
In 1858, Charles-Ivan Robert opened a workshop on the site of an ancient mill in the Swiss village of Villeret. In homage to his fascination with Roman mythology, he named it Fabrique d’Horlogerie Minerva. The firm survived the ravages of the 1970s, clinging to its independence until 2006, when it was acquired by Financière Richemont and transferred to Montblanc.
In the intervening years, the German brand has used Minerva’s legacy as a springboard for contemporary creations in its 1858 collection—chief among them the new 1858 Unveiled Secret Minerva Monopusher Chronograph, available in a limited edition of 88 pieces. Equipped with a historic hand-wound Minerva MB M16.29 movement that’s been flipped over so its complexity is visible on the dial, the watch comes in a steel case with a black coating brushed with quartzite and limestones from the nearby mountains, lending the watch a uniquely distressed look that belies its elegance.
Case Size: 43 mm
Case Material: Distressed steel
Power Reserve: 50 hours
Straps: Black nubuck alligator leather strap
1858 Geosphere 0 Oxygen The 8000 Limited Edition
The Nepal-born mountaineer Nimsdai Purja is the inspiration for Montblanc’s new limited edition Geosphere automatic chronograph, a limited edition of 290 pieces that features a worldtime complication complete with two 3D globes—the Northern Hemisphere at 12 o’clock and the Southern Hemisphere at six o’clock. The former bears 14 orange dots, marking the location of the world’s 8,000+-meter peaks.
On the back of the watch’s 44 mm titanium case, a 3D coloured laser engraving depicts the list of the 14 peaks, the name of the watch, two inspirational quotes from Nimsdai and three Himalayan prayer flags for good fortune. Last but not least, the watch comes with an interchangeable anthracite textile strap that borrows its design from a rope, a tool that no mountaineer can do without.
Case Size: 44 mm
Case Material: Titanium
Power Reserve: 46 hours
Straps: Interchangeable anthracite textile strap
PANERAI
Panerai Radiomir Annual Calendar
Famed for its simple, time-only military watches, Panerai has been steadily expanding its offerings to include more complicated pieces executed in new, forward-thinking materials. New this year is a complication that has never before been part of the Panerai oeuvre—namely, an annual calendar. Housed within a 45mm Radiomir cushion case with “wire”-type lugs and onion crown, the PAM01363 features Goldtech construction, combining platinum and copper for a red appearance. Its sun-brushed blue gradient dial is an exercise in legibility, with a day-date display at 3 o’clock, a running seconds display at 9 o’clock, and an outer, rotating month disc with a fixed arrow at 3 o’clock as an indicator. Of course, the famous Radiomir “sandwich” dial is also present and accounted for.
Also available is a special Experience edition, the reference PAM01432. Purchasing this Platinumtech-cased beauty with its sun-brushed burgundy dial will get you a ticket to a Panerai-led experience in Rome, with “events that combine artisanal know-how, culture, and tours of historical sites.” Whichever reference you spring for, you’re getting an incredible, complicated timepiece powered by the P.9010/AC automatic movement, with 40 jewels, dual barrels, and 316 components.
Case Size: 45 mm
Movement: Panerai P.9010/AC Automatic
Power Reserve: 72 hours
Panerai Radiomir California PAM01349
While Panerai has long produced a version of its famed “California dial” Radiomir in the positively enormous size of 47mm, it has never ventured smaller. This year, the Italian-founded military outfitter has finally seen fit to shrink this model down to something that’s (slightly) more wearable for someone with a sub-8-inch wrist: Please join us in welcoming the 45mm Radiomir California PAM01349! With a deep green dial, this one is a playful twist on the typical “California” formula.
Taking inspiration from the historical reference 3646, it features the famous half-Roman, half-Arabic numerals of the “California” look, plus an outer railroad minute track and a lumed, blued steel sword handset. Cased in Brunito eSteel—a type of recycled metal with its origins in different industries—the watch features brand new hand finishing that gives it a cool, vintage look. It’s powered by the hand-wound Calibre P.5000 with an 8-day power reserve, and comes paired to a calf leather strap in dark brown with contrast stitching.
Case Size: 45 mm
Case Material: Brunito eSteel
Movement: Panerai Calibre P.5000 Hand-Wound
Power Reserve: 8 days
Panerai Radiomir Otto Giorno
Available in two compelling colours, the new Radiomir Otto Giorno recalls some of the earliest Panerai models made exclusively for military use in the 1930s. Housed in a 45mm e-Steel case whose PVD exterior is hand finished for a unique, vintage-inspired look, the watch features most of the characteristics that fans have come to expect from the typical Panerai diver: a highly legible “sandwich” dial with ample lume; a cushion case with “wire” lugs and an onion crown; and a hand-wound movement with an ample power reserve—in this case, the Calibre P.5000 that can run for eight days when fully wound, which lends the piece its name in Italian.
Both the dark brown (PAM0347) and blue (PAM01348) gradient dials transition from a darker edge to a lighter center, echoing the grainy, colour-changed appearance of certain early aluminum Panerai dials. Paired to Cuoio Toscano calf leather straps that match their respective dials and are meant to take on a distinct patina with time, each is a fitting tribute to the legacy of this most distinctive of specialist, legacy watchmakers.
Case Size: 45 mm
Movement: Panerai Calibre P.5000 Hand-Wound
Power Reserve: 8 days
Panerai Radiomir Quaranta in Goldtech
Did we mention that Panerai’s focus this year is on the Radiomir collection? (Well: Panerai’s focus this year is on the Radiomir collection.) So without further ado, here’s one more Radiomir release to tickle your vintage-inspired fancy: the Quaranta in Goldtech. Godltect is Panerai’s own proprietary blend of gold, platinum, and copper that shines in a bold red colour—and nowhere does it look better than constituting the case of this most contemporary of Radiomirs.
Shrunk down from its 47mm origins, the Quaranta is so named for its 40mm size. At just 10.15mm thick—the slimmest in the brand’s entire oeuvre—it makes for a highly wearable, everyday watch…provided you can pull off a hulking hunk of gold on an everyday basis. Paired to an elegant alligator strap and fitted with a radially brushed, white “sandwich” dial, it’s powered by the impressive Calibre P.9000, an automatic movement measuring just 4.2mm tall and boasting a three-day power reserve. Positioned as a genderless, versatile piece for any type person on any occasion, it’s certainly a stunner and a fabulous example of Panerai’s adaptation of military-born tech into a contemporary guise.
Case Size: 40mm
Movement: Panerai Calibre P.9000 Automatic
Power Reserve: 72 hours
PATEK PHILIPPE
Patek Philippe Calatrava 6007G-001, 6007G-010 & 6007G-011
Patek Philippe just released three new Calatrava references, each with a white gold case, ebony dials and its own accent colour: red, yellow, or pale blue, rendered on the seconds track, seconds hand, indexes, and the stitching of the matching leather strap. The intriguing dials feature a crosshatch pattern reminiscent of carbon fiber, which matches the treatment on the strap, giving each of the trio a distinctly sporty feel.
Case Material: White gold
Straps: Leather with yellow, red, or blue stitching
Movement: Self-winding calibre 26-330 S C
ROGER DUBUIS
Roger Dubuis Monovortex Split Seconds Chronograph
Roger Dubuis watches seem to exist in two parallel universes. On the one hand, every single watch is finished in excruciating detail according to the traditional finishing conventions outlined by the Geneva Seal. On the other hand, every watch has the aesthetic of a hyper-modern, colourful, openworked, technically futuristic superwatch. They always look as if they have somehow exploded into being, in a good way. Roger Dubuis is also known for its tourbillons, and the Monovortex Split Seconds Chronograph has one of those, positioned on 360-degree conical trajectory. It also has a turborotor: a cylindrical oscillating weight that rotates perpendicular to its axis. The caliber RD114 movement also drives a split-seconds chronograph controlled by a double-column wheel. And there’s an angular, isotoxal-shaped minute counter, a tripartite hand that Roger Dubuis calls the (120° Rotating Minute Counter, with arms that carry the tens digits (0,1 or 2) while pointing out the units digit. The case is made of a mineral composite fiber (MCF that is 99.95 percent silica, made via a sheet molding compound (SMC) process. Duguis says it is 13 percent lighter than SMC carbon. Certainly not your average traditional wristwatch.
Case Size: 47 mm
Case Material: Mineral composite fiber (MCF)
Straps: Bi-material fabric
TAG HEUER
Carrera Plasma Diamond d’Avant Garde
Remember that stunning, diamond-encrusted TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamont d’Avant Garde from 2022? Well, there’s another one this year—and it’s even more diamond-y. The new Plasma sets artificial diamonds all throughout the bezel, bracelet, dial, crown, and more, making for a stealthily blingy watch—and we say “stealthy” because the entire case is black aluminum—that nevertheless delivers a serious horological punch in the form of the Calibre Heuer 02T Nanograph COSC movement with tourbillon.
A whopping 15.5 carats of lab-grown diamonds—124 of ‘em, for those who are counting—encrust every available centimeter of this timepiece. (Even the indices are diamonds!) Housed in a 44mm sandblasted aluminum case with a 2.5-carat diamond crown, its dial is composed of three polycrystalline diamond plates that form a sparkling surface against which a set of rhodium-plated hands indicate the time. The aforementioned Calibre Heuer 02T Nanograph boasts 65 hours of power reserve and extensive hand finishing, making this Plasma one heck of a statement piece, both outside and in.
Diameter: 44 mm
Movement: TAG Heuer Calibre Heuer 02T Nanograph COSC Automatic
Power Reserve: 65 hours
Aquaracer Professional 200
TAG Heuer’s Aquaracer line is most typically associated with the high seas, representing as it does the famous chronograph maker’s take on the contemporary dive watch. However, utility and flair are, as we know, most decidedly not mutually exclusive. To wit, the new Aquaracer Professional 200—two solid-gold takes on the brand’s popular aquatic timepiece. Available in 18K 5N rose gold or 18K 3N yellow gold, both are thoroughly modern divers powered by the brand’s new manufacture movement, the COSC-certified Calibre TH31-00, which boasts an 80-hour power reserve and comes complete with a five-year warranty.
The first such Aquaracer models with solid gold cases and bezels, each 40mm sports watch features a contrasting, DLC-coated crown and a DLC-coated Grade 2 titanium caseback with a sapphire window. Water resistant to 200m and featuring striking fumé gradient dials (blue on the yellow gold model and black on the rose gold), they come paired to blue or black rubber straps with DLC Grade 2 titanium folding clasps. A liberal application of SuperLumi-Nova ensures visibility below or above the waves, making the Auqaracer Professional 2000 an excellent everyday option for summertime adventures.
(Meanwhile, if solid gold is too much gold, you may be interested in two new bi-colour editions of the gold Aquaracer Professional 200, available with bezel inlay, crown, and dial detailing in 18K yellow or rose gold. Two models at 40mm are powered by the automatic TAG Heuer Calibre 5, while two ladies’ models at 30mm feature fumé mother of pearl dials with diamond-set indices, and are powered by the automatic Calibre 9 movement.)
Diameter: 40 mm
Movement: TAG Heuer Calibre 5 Automatic
Power Reserve: 38 hours
Carrera Chronograph
The story of the Carrera Chronograph continues apace with the introduction of several new models this year. Two of these are fresh colourways that bring (even more) automotive influence to a watch designed way back in 1963 and named after the famed Carrera Panamericana race that took place in Mexico: Available in black or blue, each watch boasts bright orange pops of colour that recall the speedometers on vintage race cars. Measuring 42mm in stainless steel, each also features a triple-register chronograph with recessed hour and minute totalisers, a running seconds totaliser above 6 o’clock, a lumed sword handset, and an outer 1/5th-second track positioned along the rehaut.
Uniquely, both models have date windows placed in different spots on the dial: the blue variant’s date is situated within the running second’s display above 6 o’clock, while on the black model, it can be found below 12 o’clock, recalling certain vintage Carrera “Dato” models. Paired to matching calfskin leather straps in blue or black, each is powered by the automatic Calibre Heuer02 movement, is water resistant to 100m, and features a display caseback.
Case Size: 42 mm
Movement: TAG Heuer Calibre HEUER02 Automatic
Power Reserve: 80 hours
Carrera Chronograph “Glassbox”
Perhaps the most exciting TAG Heuer release of the year for diehard Carrera fans, the new TAG Heuer Carrera “Glassbox” models are the direct descendants of the original 1963 racing chronograph—vintage reissues aside. Jack Heuer famously suffused his original Carrera watch with subtle midcentury influences found in the likes of Oscar Niemeyer’s architecture, or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s furniture, giving this small chronograph the subtleties and thoughtful touches that made it a horological classic. Likewise, the new 39m stainless steel “Glassbox” models—so called because their sapphire crystals resemble the profile of the acrylic crystals used on original 1960s watches—feature a bevy of thoughtful touches:
The curved sapphire crystal effortlessly flows over a tachymeter scale that runs along the dial edge, allowing the scale to be read from a wider variety of vantage points. This edge curves inward to reveal a 1/5th-seconds track along a flange that frames the applied dial indices, while a triple-register chronograph in recessed totalisers blends into a blue dial, or pops against a black main dial in a “panda” effect. A lumed sword handset and a date at 12 o’clock (black dial) or 6 o’clock (blue dial) finish the contemporary look. Powered by the automatic TH20-02 caliber—an updated version of the Heuer 02 chronograph movement with elevated finishing and bi-directional winding—round out this most excellent update to a true classic.
(There’s also a tourbillon-equipped version housed in a 42mm version of the Carrera case, powered by the automatic Calibre TH20-09 Automatic COSC movement and boasting a dual-register chronograph display. Paired to a blue calfskin strap, it’s a notable model within the greater catalog—and all the more special because of TAG Heuer’s positioning as more of an entry-level brand that doesn’t typically delve too far into such elite complications as the tourbillon.
Case Size: 42 mm
Movement: TAG Heuer Calibre TH20-09 Automatic COSC
Power Reserve: 65 hours
ULYSSE NARDIN
Ulysse Nardin Freak One
Ulysse Nardin Freak One
Ulysse Nardin is introducing the ultimate Freak in honor of the game-changing watch it launched in 2001. Designed by notable watchmaker and physicist Dr. Ludwig Oechslin, the Freak represented a fresh expression of watchmaking. It had no dial – just an open view of the movement. Nor did it have hands- time was indicated by a one-hour carrousel tourbillon that pointed to an index as it rotated. And instead of a crown, time was set by winding a device on the caseback that was connected to a system built into the bezel. The new Freak One recaptures the spirit of the original 2001 Freak and adopts the best innovations introduced in the eight variations that have appeared since. It is regulated by a silicon hairspring first introduced in 2008, along with an escapement treated with shock-resistant DIAMonSIL, was first applied to the Freak in 2007. It repeats the iconic notched bezel of the original 2001 Freak, the open gear train of the Freak Cruiser of 2013, and the legibility codes of the 2018 Freak Vision. The black DLC-coated titanium and rose gold detailing echoes other recent Freak iterations, such as last year’s Freak S.
Case Size: 44 mm by 12 mm
Case Material: Black DLC-coated titanium
Power Reserve: 72 hours
Straps: Black textured rubber, black alligator two-tone rubber
VACHERON CONSTANTIN
Traditionelle Tourbillon Retrograde
It’s a retrograde year for Vacheron Constantin. The display, which requires extreme precision, is a longtime tradition for the brand, a complication in itself that became popular in the 1920s. Vacheron is applying it to three new models this year. The first is the Traditionelle Tourbillon Retrograde, which combines a tourbillon with a retrograde date display. The movement, automatic caliber 2162 R31, is visible on the openworked dial and given a slate grey NAC surface treatment that contrasts with the traditional features of the watch. The date is tracked on a retrograde arc across the top half of the dial. Once the arrow hand reaches the 31, it jumps back to the beginning at the next date change, starting at 1 again. The watch retains the main design codes of the Traditionelle line, including stepped round case and lugs, a fluted caseback, a slim bezel, a railway minute-track, bi-faceted Dauphine hands and gold baton-style hour-markers. It is finished to Geneva Hallmark standards.
Case Size: 41 mm x 11.07 mm
Case Material: 18k pink gold
Power Reserve: 72 hours
Straps: Gray alligator
Patrimony Retrograde Day-Date
The combination of platinum case, salmon dial and double retrograde is enough to tell you that this is a watch will be a fast sell-out. This boutique-only edition won’t last. The dial is classically minimalist, with needle-thin central hour and minute hands and eccentric details like long pointed hash marks at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock, pearled 18k white gold minute markers and an 18k gold Maltese cross, the brand’s logo, at 12 o’clock. The date/day retrograde arcs at top and bottom are marked by skeletonised blued steel hands.
Case Size: 42.5 mm x 9.7 mm
Case Material: Platinum
Power Reserve: 40 hours
Straps: Blue alligator
Overseas Moonphase Retrograde
This is Vacheron’s first sports watch with a retrograde display, and a very rare example of a retrograde moon phase arc. The moon phases are displayed through a 6 o’clock aperture and also read on a graduated from 0 to 29½, indicating the number of days elapsed since the last new moon. It’s a precision moon phase, requiring a one-day correction only once every 122 years. The retrograde date arc above is subtle, with a blue hand over the background of a blue dial. The watch retains the signature features of the Overseas collection: six-sided bezel evoking the Maltese cross, fluted crown, polished and satin-brushed finishes, translucent lacquered dial, luminescent hour-markers and hands. it is Geneva Hallmark certified.
Case Size: 41 mm x 10.48 mm
Case Material: Stainless steel
Power Reserve: 40 hours
Straps: Stainless steel; calfskin leather; blue rubber
VAN CLEEF & ARPELS
Van Cleef & Arpels Planetarium Automaton
One of Van Cleef’s introductions for 2023 is a universe unto itself. Following on the groundwork laid by its Planetarium watches, introduced in 2014, and a massive automaton clock unveiled at Watches and Wonders last year, is a new edition of the Planetarium Automoton clock that offers a new combination of materials. This version is complemented with a black Aventurine glass dial, which helps to make the sparkling sun at the center and the seven planets that revolve around it look like they’re floating in outer space. It’s even accompanied by a special melody created in partnership with Swiss musician Michel Tirabosco.
Dimensions: 50 cm x 66.5 cm
Power Reserve: 15 days
Movement: Automaton and mechanical movements including a planétarium and 11 other modules such as hour/minute display, perpetual calendar
Van Cleef & Arpels Floraison du Nénuphar Automaton
This is the first of two unique automaton clocks Van Cleef & Arpels dedicated to nature and created with the help of the Francois Junod workshop. On command, they both open their floral crowns and reveal a butterfly hidden within the petals of the blooom atop the piece. This model, the Floraison du Nénuphar, hides its butterfly completely inside its lotus-like flowers. Once it opens, the butterfly appears to hover, and flaps its wings in a natural motion for a few seconds before returning to the interior of the flower, which closes around it to complete the spectacle. It tells time with a ring on the outside of the base of the clock, around which a winged figure revolves to mark the time.
Dimensions: 27 cm x 21.5 cm
Power Reserve: 8 days
Movement: Automaton and mechanical movements
Van Cleef & Arpels Éveil du Cyclamen Automata
This clock’s animation is similar, but the flowers that surround the butterfly reveal a little more than its fellow new debut. At the touch of the button, their stems fall away and allow the enamel-painted insect inside to float above the petals momentarily, where it also flaps its wings before disappearing inside the pink enamel petals once more.
Dimensions: 27 cm x 21.5 cm
Power Reserve: 8 days
Movement: Automaton and mechanical movements
Perlée
Van Cleef & Arpels relaunched its Perlée collection last year with a new motif: beaded gold. It resembles the art of granulation, in which gold balls soldered onto a gold surface, but on the Perlée collection the effect is cast, so the row of beads is already solidly attached to the surface of the gold and then finished and polished by hand. Five new models in this delicately feminine collection (four with a 23mm case and one with a 30mm case) have decorative dials of pavé-set diamonds, guillochérose gold or guilloché mother-of pearl. Each comes with an interchangeable alligator strap along with second option from the collection. There is also a jewelry bracelet, composed of articulated gold beads.
Case Size: 23 mm or 30 mm
Case Material: 18k white or rose gold
Movement: quartz
Straps: Alligator or 18k gold bracelet
Precious Dance
Van Cleef takes the gold beaded motif to yet another level with this series of six pendant watches. The locket-like pendants are like small pocket watches, with gem-set cases that swivel open to reveal the time. Three are set with the big three precious gems: either sapphire, ruby or emeralds, in either rose or yellow gold, with matching gold chains. The cases of three others are set with ornamental stones. Bezels are ringed with diamonds and the dials are mother-of-pearl.
Case Material: 18k gold
Movement: quartz
Straps: 18k gold chain
Ludo Secret and Hexagone Macaron Secret
The Ludo bracelet, with its tightly worked mesh-like links, is a signature Van Cleef & Arpels creation, first introduced in 1934, nearly a century ago. The flexible, brick-pattern meshwork culminates in a belt-buckle-like motif that is set with either diamonds or pink sapphires, which makes for an outstandingly creative dial surround. The Ludo Hexagone Macaron secret watch, inspired by an archival creation from 1941, has a cover entirely blanketed with mystery set emeralds. It is surrounded by arcs of large, prong-set diamonds set claw-style for intense light return. Emeralds are also set into the bracelet links for a final, elegantly assertive touch.
Case Material: 18k gold
Movement: quartz
Straps: 18k gold
Lady Féerie Rose
The magical, mysterious, enchanting fairy is a signature motif for Van Cleef & Arpels, and the Maison never seems to run out of ways to interpret the delicate sprite – often in the service of poetic complications. Here, she is interpreted in shades of pink in the form of translucent plique-à-jour and opaque enamel, along with pink sapphires. She points her magic wand to numerals on a retrograde arc to read the minutes, while the hours appear in a mother-of-pearl jump-hour window that appears to emerge from the white enamel clouds on which the fairy is poised. Her wings, head and body are formed with diamonds, which are also set into the bezel.
Case size: 33 mm
Case Material: 18-karat rose gold
Movement: Self-winding mechanical
Straps: Alligator
ZENITH
Zenith Pilot Automatic
While you may more readily associate the pilot’s watch with Swiss brands such as IWC and German marques like Laco, Zenith has a longstanding history in the vertical that runs more than skin deep: It was way back in 1888 that the maison first filed a trademark for the French term “Pilote”—and subsequently, the English term “Pilot”—to be used on watches designed for those who would brave the skies. This year’s Pilot Automatic, then, represents a brand new, thoroughly contemporary chapter in the firm’s pilot’s watch saga: Measuring 40mm in stainless steel or black ceramic, it’s an exercise in the marriage of vintage-inspired tropes with modern watchmaking.
Both versions of the Pilot automatic feature rounded cases topped by flat-top, rounded bezels; the steel version boasts vertically satin-brushed surfaces and polished chamfers, while the black version is microblasted. Both likewise feature a modern take on the oversized “onion” crown of vintage pilot’s watches, which remains easy to manipulate—even with gloves on—and is devoid of crown guards. With its black opaline dial executed in horizontal grooves to echo the look of a vintage, corrugated metal plane, the Pilot Automatic still features large Arabic indices, an outer, white minute track, and a highly legible sword handset—echoes of classic pilot’s watches of years past.
Powered by the automatic Zenith El Primero 3620 movement with high-beat, 5Hz frequency and 60-hour power reserve, the watch comes paired with two straps: a black Cordura-effect rubber strap and a khaki Cordura-effect strap. Both feature triple-folding clasps with black PVD coating.
Case Size: 40 mm
Movement: Zenith El Primero 3620 Automatic
Power Reserve: 60 hours
Zenith Pilot Big Date Flyback
Reserved and utilitarian as the Zenith Pilot Automatic is, Zenith must have felt there was room to riff on its revamped pilot’s watch collection and add a touch of je ne sais quois—which is precisely what the maison did when designing its Pilot Big Date Flyback. The name gives it all away: This awesome, modern take on the pilot’s watch trope includes an outsize date function, plus a chronograph with a flyback complication. Best of all: it doesn’t quite look like anything else on the market.
Measuring 42.5mm in black microblasted ceramic or stainless steel, it puts Zenith’s decades of chronograph-making expertise front and center by incorporating the El Primero 3600 movement, which has been modified specifically for these new references into the Caliber 3652. Automatically wound and beating at 5Hz, it powers an outsize date above 6 o’clock on the dial, as well as a flyback function, which allows the chronograph seconds hand to be reset to zero and re-engaged without a series of time-sucking button presses. And while the ceramic version is its own animal, the steel version pays tribute to the “Rainbow Flyback” chronograph from 1997, which was the brand’s first El Primera-based flyback model.
Case Size: 42.5 mm
Movement: Zenith El Primero 3652 Automatic
Power Reserve: 60 hours
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Home is Where the Art Is
Six standout Australian galleries to know now.
Australia’s gallery scene is booming. More galleries than ever before are going on the road to participate in art fairs in scene that is rapidly maturing. Meet the passionate local owners from around Australia who are energising the creative milieu with the abstract, the edgy, the Indigenous and the generally astounding.
Hugo Michell Gallery
The district may not roll off the artistic tongue like Paris’s Montmartre or London’s Shoreditch, and yet the prim hedges of Adelaide’s Beulah Park suburb provide cover to a stealth powerhouse of the Australian contemporary art movement, tucked away in a charming, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it converted Victorian workers’ cottage. Since 2008, the Hugo Michell Gallery has unflappably carried the torch for established and emerging acts with equal fidelity, across a broad sweep of mediums from photography to printmaking, textile to ceramic. “We try not to get caught up in the hype and handle each artist we represent with the nuance required for promoting their work,” says Michell, currently counting 28 artists on his books. One notable on this year’s busy docket is Melbourne-based Richard Lewer, a social realist—already snapped up by the National Galleries of Australia and Victoria, no less—who for a month from April 10th will probe the uneasy relationship between crime, sport and religion. While comfortable in the skin of his homely suburban bolthole, Michell is not averse to braving the rigours of the Australian art fair circuit (“They’re a bit of a circus, but who doesn’t love a circus?) and often undertakes house visits to acquaint himself with the whims of new customers. “One of the things that gives me the most joy is building a collection for a client,” he says. “We have worked with for 16 years, tailoring and sourcing works for them.” More proof that you don’t need a headline location to generate the biggest stories.
hugomichellgallery.com
Cassandra Bird Gallery
The art sphere often challenges the myth that married partners should not become gallerists—see Iwan and Manuela Wirth of Hauser & Wirth fame, among other examples. And so it is that Cassandra Bird and husband Fabian Jentsch are rapidly cementing a reputation as one the Australian art scene’s supercouples with their 2023-acquired Potts Point space, an expansive four-level heritage terrace fizzing with congeniality, making visitors feel like they have popped to a friend’s (expertly curated) home for elevenses. Which is no great shock: the property doubles as the duo’s own home. Bird brings a wealth of experience, and a hefty contacts book, thanks to long, respected stints in the Big Apple and Berlin, and nine years at Sydney’s RoslynOxley9 Gallery; Jentsch, meanwhile, is an experienced artist, exhibition maker and set designer. “We try to enthuse people, get them excited as we are about those we work with,” says Bird. Meander across the property’s wooden floorboards—perhaps diverting for a chat in the communal courtyard that doubles as a social hub and ideas-exchange forum—and you will enter the realm of Perth-born graphic painter Jedda Daisy-Culley, who has a hallway and wall dedicated to her work; venture upstairs and deep dive into locally based experimental photographer Laura Moore; head into the basement and peruse the collective works the Tennant Creek Brio, out of Warumungu Country in the Northern Territory. All 24 of the gallery’s artists unite under the theme of timelessness. “We are into investigating quality and showing transformational and breakout work from artists,” says Jentsch. “The work we choose must have something that is strong value for us.” Here’s to the sanctity of marriage.
D’lan Contemporary
It speaks volumes for the international reach of Indigenous art that D’lan Contemporary opened an outpost in New York long before expanding the gallery beyond its Melbourne roots to set up shop in Sydney. Then again, founder and director D’lan Davidson is not afraid of expanding his frontiers as a means of hawking Australia’s most vital cultural outpourings; in 2016, he left the Sotheby’s Australia auction house, where he was ensconced as head of aboriginal art, to launch D’lan Contemporary as the go-to gallery for secondary market First Nations art; and he recently travelled to Maastricht in the Netherlands for the prestigious European Fine Arts Foundation Art Fair, promoting a series of Western Arnhem bark paintings and works by Paddy Bedford, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Rover Thomas and other. Closer to home, Davidson has surrounded himself with a team brimming with the requisite Indigenous art smarts, including chief curator and gallery director Luke Scholes. From May 8th-July 4th, the Significant exhibition, a mainstay of the Melbourne gallery for the past ten years, will show across all three of D’lan Contemporary’s locations. “Our exhibitions and all our advocacy work seek to further support and develop the burgeoning global interest in Australian First Nations art and artists,” says Scholes. As if further proof were needed of its commitment, the gallery donates 30 percent of its profit back to artists and their communities. Bravo.
N.Smith Gallery
Enter Nick Smith’s compact office and you notice how the walls are studded by the artworks of those he represents; this is a man, you feel, who has a more intimate connection to his stable than the average gallery chief—an instinct confirmed upon discovering that he has invested his entire life savings into the Surry Hills space. When we meet, Smith’s whiteboard is teeming with collaborative projects, hinting heavily at the kind of edgy, thought-provoking artists that his outfit—comprised of five full-time staff—is renowned for nurturing. “It’s constant, but amazing,” says Smith in his typically reserved manner, more studious scientist than reengage gallerist. “I wanted to contribute to culture in my own way.” The gallery’s current ascension allays any empathetic fears of impending financial doom. This past February, Smith—who cut his teeth at Philip Bacon Galleries in Brisbane and Sydney’s Sullivan+Strumpf—collaborated with the Australian High Commission in India to represent Darrell Sibosado at India Art Fair ’25, and throughout the year will be partnering with the Sydney chapter of Soho House to host a series of private viewings and artist studio visits. Even so, he now splits his time equally between private and public projects, often mentoring artists at all stages of their creative journeys. “It’s that forward momentum. It’s that feeling of progressions and going somewhere that I love,” says Smith. Indeed, the only way is up.
Palas
It is hard—nay, almost impossible—to imagine Palas founders Tania Doropoulos and Matt Glenn frantically trying to scoop up whoever is flavour of the month on Sydney’s perennially shifting art circuit. Here are young gallery partners prone to a slower, more considered approach, instead recruiting a tight roster of internationally famed artists, and choosing to nurture relationships that have been years, sometime decades, in the making. Case in point: video performance maestro Shaun Gladwell, who represented Australia at the 2007 Venice Biennale (a 20-year affiliate), and Melbourne-based artist and noise-musician Marco Fusinato (15 years), who also flew the artistic green and gold at the same festival in 2022. Add to that list Canadian multi-media artist Tamara Henderson and Irish sculptor Eva Rothschild, currently working out of London, and it is clear Palas have a formidable roll call to lean on. “We’re investing a huge amount of time into their processes as art makers,” says Doropoulos. “And I think by extension, we’ve got really good working relationships with other galleries throughout the world.” For its founders, the Palas gallery—which opened in Sydney’s resolutely hipster Waterloo suburb just over a year ago with a silkscreen painting medley by the aforementioned Fusinato—is somewhat of a flag-planting endeavour on home soil: both earned a certain amount of their stripes overseas—Doropoulos as former artistic director of Frieze London and Frieze Studios, and Glenn at Sadie Coles HQ, also in the British capital. Australian art disciples will no doubt be praying for a long domestic residency.
Coma
If Sotiris Sotiriou’s consciously balanced ensemble of black Saint Laurent suit, single gold chain and flash of bare chest are anything to go by, the Coma gallery founder wields a sharp eye—a handy attribute to have when your career depends on identifying aesthetic clout, what hits and what doesn’t. From humble beginnings in 2016 in a subterranean road space next to Elvis Pizza on Sydney’s New South Head Road, his enterprise gradually flowered, first to East Sydney, then Chippendale, before fully blooming at his current space in up-and-coming Marrickville, in what was once a coffee factory. The predominantly light-industrial area has witnessed around half a dozen new gallery debuts in recent years, and Coma’s door-fling, filled as it was with hip young Inner West couples sourcing bold, ambitious art for their homes and offices, suggests Sotiriou has timed his arrival to perfection. February’s opening exhibition was hosted by Australian (but Santa Fe based) figurative painter Justin Williams, whose approach riffs on the folkloric traditions of Russian and Polish art, rich with symbolism and psychological details; this work forms a striking counterpoint to the abstract expressionism of other Sotiriou recruits, such as Zara June Williams and her partner Jack Lanagan Dunbar. The Coma head honcho, who had a spell selling to wealthy clients at Nanda Hobbs, says that private clients now make up most of his customer base. This year, as he prepares to attend three international art fairs, he estimates his artistic head count to increase by 30 percent. He can, no doubt, also point you in the direction of a fine tailor.
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07/04/2025
14/04/2025
Car of the Year
Always an unmissable highlight of the automotive calendar, Robb Report ANZ’s annual motoring awards set a new benchmark among glorious Gold Coast tarmac.
Over two unforgettable days, our motoring sages and VIP guests embarked on an exhilarating journey from Surfers Paradise to Brisbane and back again—traversing an irresistible selection of terrain in our exotic rides, from deserted rainforest-lined b-roads to testing mountain switchbacks with dizzying—sometimes heart-in-mouth—views over the southern Queensland peninsula. And as befitting an event starring the crème de la crème of auto marques, we did so while savouring the best in luxury and gastronomy—capped off with an extraordinary superyacht experience at Sanctuary Cove.
The ten contenders for the Car of the Year were not the only dream machines on show. The first day’s adventure kicked off at the Langham Hotel and included a midday pit stop at the glorious Beechmont Estate, where our fleet of drivers were greeted by a stunning array of vintage cars exhibited in a concours d’elegance-style display.
The sumptuous feast for the eyes on offer at Beechmont, a quaint country village located between the Lamington Plateau and Tamborine Mountain, was followed by a meal for the ages prepared by executive chefs Chris and Alex Norman at the property’s hatted restaurant, The Paddock.
Then, itching to remount our steeds, it was time to hit the road again, with our drivers—all sporting Onitsuka Tiger’s new driving shoes—hightailing it to Brisbane and The Calile Hotel, a property which has been scooping accolades like Jay Leno collects supercars.
After some much needed relaxation by the pool, that evening the drivers and press were joined by local luminaries in the hotel’s private dining room. Over an extravagant banquet they got to compare notes on marvels of engineering and design that they’d had the chance to pilot all day. They were also treated to a showcase of spectacular Jacob & Co. timepieces and Hardy Brothers jewellery and an elegant sufficiency of 40-year Glenfiddich whiskey served in gold cups worth $60,000 a pop. It made for animated discussions and more than a little impromptu shopping.
And did we mention the luxury yacht experience? After a full itinerary of adventures on the road, the day ended with an invigorating late-afternoon of luxuriating aboard two new Riviera Yacht releases—the 6800 Sport Yacht and the 585 SUV—where our intrepid drivers and assorted press got to literally and figuratively take their hands off the wheel and make a case for their car of the year. As the forthcoming pages attest, they were more than spoiled for choice. But who would take centre stage on the winners’ podium?
OVERALL WINNER
BEST SPORTS CAR
BEST LUXURY HYBRID
BEST PERFORMANCE SUPERCAR
BEST ROADSTER
BEST CAR DESIGN
BEST ELECTRIC PERFORMANCE CAR
BEST SUV
Cruise along to robbreport.com.au/events for more supercars and luxury motoring.
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Cool as Ice
Mercedes-Benz’s CEO Ola Källenius is expert at racing a nearly four-tonne truck across a frozen lake. Can he steer the marque’s EV-focused future as adeptly?
Ola Källenius is standing in a cold, bare workshop just south of the Arctic Circle in his native Sweden. A heavily disguised prototype of the new electric G-Class SUV—not yet launched when we meet—has just returned from high-speed, low-grip testing on tracks cut into the frozen lakes nearby and is being hoisted into the air on a hydraulic lift for inspection. As it drips meltwater onto the concrete floor, Källenius, CEO of the Mercedes-Benz Group, eats his lunch (today, a premade sandwich and a carton of juice) and speaks in fluent German to the mostly Austrian engineers who spend months in this bleak locale ensuring that the company’s new models can cope with the types of conditions in which vanishingly few customers will ever actually drive. They discuss the truck’s handling on ice and the progress of its test program. Källenius compliments them on the car’s dynamics—how stable it remained even at speed, how safe he felt driving it—and asks them how long they’re here.
“There are some harsh realities to this job, and to the car industry,” he tells me later. “But this is what I love doing: spending time with our designers, or driving with you on an ice-lake in Sweden, or talking to these engineers. I wanted to congratulate them on what they’ve achieved. We get to enjoy a nice couple of days here, but they’re here for a long time.”
At 193 cm, Källenius might tower over most of them physically, but there’s nothing in his demeanor that hints at the disparity in their corporate statuses. Nor is this the kind of place you’d expect to find the head of one of the world’s great luxury brands: a man paid roughly $22 million last year to lead the 166,000 employees of a company valued at around $75 billion, whose founder, Carl Benz, invented the motor car and whose genuinely iconic logo has graced the nose of everything from popemobiles and Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 racer to the most expensive automobile ever sold at auction. In a recent report, investment analysts Bernstein described Mercedes-Benz under Källenius’s reign as a “four-wheeled cash-generation machine”.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
But the celebrated car marques are not like luxury brands that make watches or couture or accessories or Champagne. Look beyond the alluring badge and bodywork for a moment: the objects Mercedes-Benz and its rivals produce are insanely complex, ever-changing and hugely capital-intensive—and must succeed in an utterly cutthroat market. Their impact on the environment and the economy has always made them perennial hot-button issues politically. But the electrification of the automobile has put these companies in the geopolitical crosshairs like never before, as governments swap tariffs and risk a global trade war to ensure that they keep their respective shares of the car industry, even as it undergoes an unprecedented transformation.
And of course, the cars need to be remade, too. Add the impact of electrification to Källenius’s own manifesto for Mercedes-Benz, and this storied marque is likely to change more in the next decade than it did in the previous 138 years. “It’s a once-in-a-century transformation,” he says. “We are reinventing our original invention.”
So who is the guy steering Mercedes through this tumult? What’s his plan? And what cars will he give us? Källenius has sat for plenty of interviews in his five years as CEO (his second five-year term is set to conclude in 2029), but this is the first time that he has offered anything more. Robb Report was invited to spend the weekend with him in Arjeplog, the tiny northern-Swedish town whose population swells fourfold each winter as the global car industry descends to test its secret new models on the area’s frozen lakes. Spy photographers abound, but to reduce the chance of its future lineup being scooped, Mercedes rents its own private expanse of sheet ice from a local landowner. I watch Källenius as he test-drives the electric G at his empire’s oddest and most northerly outpost, meets local staff and records social-media footage. He drives some other, more secret new electric AMGs that I am definitely not allowed to see, whose debuts are much further off and which, when not on the ice, remain hidden beneath their heavy covers outside the workshop.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
Källenius has a reputation for being fearsomely intelligent, rational and efficient, but also not the type of hyper-alpha asshole who too often comes to lead a carmaker. Over the weekend, I see that sharpness not just in the logic of his answers, but in the nuance of the English prose, as perfect as his German, in which he delivers them.
I’m not sure I’d want those piercing blue eyes and that high-wattage intellect turned on me in a meeting if I didn’t have my numbers straight, but his non-asshole character dominates. It comes through in the easy egalitarianism he displays with the engineers in the workshop, or how he notices and thanks waitstaff, or the way he’s enjoying a casual dinner and a beer with a long table of employees of all stripes when I first arrive at the unglamorous Silverhatten hotel where he’s staying—a glorified bunkhouse for the United Nations of engineers and test-drivers who flock here. This is clearly a leader who sees the obligations of his office as clearly as its privileges: an attitude underpinned by a natural Nordic modesty and reserve.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
“I guess your personality is something that forms in younger years, and I’m not sure you can fundamentally change it,” he tells me over coffee one morning. “There is a Swedish core in the way I act, and maybe most Swedes are not kick-the-door-down types. I believe this should be true for anybody who is at Mercedes or has the privilege to lead Mercedes: We are custodians of that star for a brief moment. It’s my job to hand it over safe and in better condition. The person is not the brand.”
Perhaps not, but the brand will look very different by the time this person is done with it in 2029. And you can add loyalty to that list of his qualities: Källenius has never worked anywhere else, having joined Mercedes-Benz in 1993 straight out of the Stockholm School of Economics, where he founded an American football team called the Traders, for which he was captain of the offense. True to form, he studied tapes of the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots in order to write the team playbooks. At Mercedes, he was a finance guy at first; an early posting took him to Alabama, to help set up the Mercedes factory in Tuscaloosa, where he became—and remains—a Crimson Tide fan.
In 2003, at the age of just 34, he was put in charge of the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren supercar project; two years later, he was given control of Mercedes-Benz High Performance Powertrains, the firm’s in-house Formula 1 engine-maker. After a year as vice president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz US International back in Tuscaloosa, he was recalled to Germany in 2010 to become vice president and managing director of AMG, Mercedes’s high-performance road-car division. Then came two board positions to prove his breadth of ability—sales and marketing, followed by research and development—before he ascended to the top job in 2019 at the age of 50.
The electric G-Class we’re about to drive together (now officially if awkwardly named the “G580 with EQ Technology”) is a neat encapsulation of many of the things Källenius has tried to do at Mercedes. First, it’s an EV, which fits his initial plan to make everything electric—“where market conditions allow”—by 2030. Second, it’s expensive, with a starting price in the US of $161,500 (around $257,000, though likely to cost more in Australia). Another critical if controversial part of his manifesto is to shift Mercedes upmarket; he spun off the truck business early and is currently in the process of dropping high-volume, low-margin models including the A- and B-Classes. And lastly, he wants new models to still feel like Mercedes vehicles, even if the design that underpins them is radically different from what came before. And the G-Wagen—with its gloriously anachronistic overengineering that you can feel and hear every time you clunk a door shut—epitomises the Mercedes ethos whether the vehicle is gas or electric.
Other new Mercedes EVs go much further in their innovation, gaining greater advantage from their electric drivetrains given that they were designed as EVs from the outset. They use Mercedes’s new MB.OS operating system with built-in AI and receive fresh design cues inside and out—not least the mad, vast, almost full-width hyperscreen user interface—rather than the same upright, rectilinear lines first sketched out to suit the needs of farmers and soldiers when the G-Class was introduced 45 years ago.
But as shorthand for old Merc meeting new, the electric G is perfect, and it’s pleasing to be driven in it by the CEO on whose watch it was conceived and executed. “Yes, this is an electric G,” he says as he drifts it across the glassy frozen lake, “but it’s 100 percent G. The most important box for any G-Class to tick is the Schöckl mountain in Austria, to earn that Schöckl-proven plaque they all have. I did five trips up and down it in the electric G in the autumn, and not only can it do the Schöckl, I felt it could do the Schöckl best of all.”
His stints at AMG, in Formula 1, and with McLaren have turned this “spreadsheet guy” into a skilled driver, though most Swedes seem to have the ability to safely slide a car on ice coded into their DNA. Even with the G sideways at around 110 km/h, a plume of snow and ice billowing high behind it, Källenius has enough spare mental-processing capacity to adjust the screen settings while telling a funny story about the very first time an electric G even crossed his mind.
He was at the Detroit Auto Show in 2018, when the company was first showing the revised G-Class. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to the unveiling and asked Källenius’s predecessor, Dieter Zetsche, if an electric version was in the cards. “Dr. Zetsche said, ‘Yes, of course,’ Källenius recalls. “I was head of R & D at the time, and one of my colleagues turned to me and said, ‘Do we even have an electric G in the plan?’ I said that I guessed we did now.”
Those less keen on electric cars than Arnie and Ola might be pleased by the fact that the ambition to be battery-only by 2030 has fizzled fast. Mercedes now predicts that EVs and plug-in hybrids will account for only half of its sales by the late 2020s, and the company is refreshing its range of gas engines to keep them relevant and selling deep into the 2030s. This is a systemic issue and no reflection on Mercedes products; Källenius has always averred “where market conditions allow”, and market conditions currently don’t. But the retreat is still slightly awkward.
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
“The early adopter phase is over,” he tells me. “Now we need to convince every customer. I think it would be a mistake to say, ‘Okay, electric is growing a bit slower, let’s sit back, wait, and not do anything.’ Because if you put product into the market that is so convincing that most customers go, ‘Yeah, maybe I didn’t have iPhone 1, but iPhone 4 looks pretty good,’ you can get very quick, even exponential growth. And if you were the one that said, ‘I’m not going to set sail here; let’s wait and see what the weather does,’ all the other boats would be out on the ocean, and you’d miss the race.”
But if buyers are going to be sold on EVs by the technology rather than by brand power, what does Mercedes’ 138 years of history count for? With customers attracted to new EV marques that are able to innovate unconstrained by precedent—and one of those brands having a market cap 7.5 times that of Mercedes, despite selling a few hundred thousand fewer cars per year—does heritage become a liability rather than an asset?
“We also do unconventional things,” Källenius insists. “With blow-your-mind–type features like the crazy hyperscreen in the EQS and the EQE, a lot of people are looking at Mercedes who perhaps didn’t look before. We are one of the biggest automotive sponsors in e-sports. Formula 1 is off the charts; 53 percent of F1 fans are between 15 and 35, and 37 percent are women. When we do crazy things like the G-Class collaborations with Moncler or the late Virgil Abloh, you go beyond the traditional auto crowd to one that buys from other luxury brands. My test is if one of my kids sends me a picture and goes, like, ‘Dad, what is this?’ I got their attention.”
I wonder how the former finance guy now handles running one of the world’s great luxury brands and to whom he looks for inspiration. He acknowledges that he meets with Bernard Arnault at LVMH and Jean- Frédéric Dufour at Rolex but is coy about the nature of their discussions.
“We also reach out to people in other luxury businesses to understand how they think,” Källenius notes. “I had the good fortune to meet Brunello Cucinelli, and he invited me down to Solomeo, the hamlet which he has helped to restore. It’s one of the most beautiful villages I’ve ever seen. I learned a lot about fabrics, quality, stealth luxury, sometimes not emphasising the brand so much. A fine gentleman like that has a very clear understanding of what luxury means in his business. We brought some secret new-vehicle designs to show him and to get his input.”
Courtesy of Mercedes-Benz
“Maybe you can’t compare a high-intensity, high-engineering, high-capital-investment good like a car to a piece of clothing,” he adds. “They are different businesses. But good chefs eat in each other’s restaurants even though they have a totally different style of cooking, just to see what the others are doing. But when you go back into your kitchen, you’re still the chef, and you put together the recipe.”
I sense a slight frustration from the hyperrational Swede—perhaps that he believes he has gotten the recipe right but has to wait a bit longer for diners’ tastes to catch up. In many cases, judged on any objective criteria, the new Mercedes EVs will be the best cars the company has ever made, including the electric G. The customers, though, are as busy trying to get their heads around this brave new world as the automotive CEOs are.
“This is definitely the most transformative decade since the inception of the company,” Källenius agrees. “But we’ve always done this. The Swabian engineers who founded Mercedes didn’t look at the horseshoe and think, ‘How do we make this lighter to make the horse run faster?’ They wanted to get the horse out of the equation and do something new. That attitude hasn’t changed. We’ve always looked through the windscreen, not in the mirror.”
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Men at Play
Two restless entrepreneurs build a Belizean island paradise especially for those “aha! moments”.
Though he’s supposed to be in what he calls his “play years” now, Knoxville-based real-estate entrepreneur Steve Hall still finds himself working on vacation. After a trip to Belize, he got the itch to build something new and started meeting with developers. Hall hit it off with David Keener, CEO and owner of Vision Properties, and together they acquired an isolated tract on Placencia Caye, a private island just five minutes by boat from the mainland.
After two and a half years of work, they’ve recently started welcoming guests to Prana Maya, a secluded, wellness-focused retreat that enjoys expansive views of the Caribbean Sea, the island’s lagoon and the Maya Mountains. “We designed everything to inspire people,” Hall says of the property. “Every aspect of the resort is intentional. Every service we offer is designed to create that ‘aha! moment’ that will rock someone’s world.”
The property includes seven three- and four-bedroom villas featuring locally carved wooden doors. The breezy, secluded structures are sited to prioritise views of the water, and each has its own plunge pool. Rooms at the Inn—a collection of 10 airy, light-filled suites—face the ocean. Each guest has an assigned butler, and every bed at the resort is fitted with a custom grounding mat, designed to replicate a connection with nature; some studies suggest they promote mental and physical well-being.
Belize’s tropical landscape is the catalyst for getting outdoors. Its unique saltwater flats give sport-fishing aficionados a bucket-list opportunity: catching what the International Game Fishing Association calls the Grand Slam—permit, tarpon and bonefish—all in one day. So Hall and Keener recruited High Adventure Company, a global outfitter with 30 years of guiding expertise, to take guests on exclusive angling excursions. The resort will also offer cave-tubing, jungle-trekking, zip-lining and diving trips.
Courtesy of Prana Maya
If you’re in search of less rugged activities, head to the spa and wellness centre. The design team placed it on prime real estate: the Inn’s top floor, which has 360-degree water views and 5 m ceilings. Here, you’ll find a yoga studio, five private treatment rooms and a sound-therapy space. You can also enjoy Prana Maya’s private beach, the only sandy stretch on the island that isn’t shared with another property.
At The Grill, the open-air restaurant, executive chef Liesel Kirste cooks with indigenous ingredients—many sourced from the resort’s four-hectare farm. The menu includes elevated fare such as locally caught lobster, grilled and served over fresh pasta. Even components of more casual dishes are made from scratch: at the Island Club—with its outdoor kitchen, lawn games and forthcoming palapa-shaded pickleball court—the ketchup and mayonnaise are made in-house. That gives the culinary team the flexibility to design a bespoke menu, upon request, to suit your nutritional needs.
Ultimately, Prana Maya is the expression of a million small details (down to the reef-safe spa products, curated by a Belizean supplier) and the location’s natural majesty. “When you get out to the island site, see the spectacular views of the Caribbean, turn another direction and see the beauty of the Maya Mountains, it is such an awesome and almost overwhelming feeling,” Hall says. One he is determined to share with everyone who visits.
Top image: Benedict Kim/Courtesy of Prana Maya
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14/04/2025
07/04/2025
How to Use Your Dress Watch to Nail Casual Style This Autumn
The dress watch is back and more laid-back than ever. Here’s how to rock your Cartier and Piaget pieces with casual looks
After the seemingly never-ending hype around steel sports watches, dress watches have been making a comeback. But it’s not just the average 42 mm dress watch that’s sparking interest (although, those too, are in the running), but also funky vintage diamond-accented timepieces or small-sized, almost feminine pieces are trending. Recently, actor Paul Mescal was spotted on the red carpet of the Annual Academy Museum Gala wearing a Cartier Tank Mini with his tux, while sports legend Dwyane Wade wore a 28 mm diamond Tiffany & Co. Eternity watch with his black tie ensemble to the same event. While these guys were wearing dress watches in their intended setting, here we show you how to make a dress watch work for casual weekend wear too.
Try dabbling in unexpected pairings like an army green Ghiaia safari jacket with a vintage Chopard Happy Diamonds timepiece or Breguet Classique Ref. 7147 (the ultimate dressy timekeeper) with a Louis Vuitton sweatsuit and a Brioni overcoat. Anything goes these days and the more unexpected the timepiece, the stronger the statement. It’s good news all around—for your wardrobe and your investments in the vault.
Above: Blancpain 39.7 mm Villeret Ultraplate in 18-karat red gold, $69,675; Tod’s faux-shearling and denim jacket, $5,6859; Tom Ford cashmere and silk turtleneck, $2,535.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY MATALLINA. WATCH EDITOR, PAIGE REDDINGER. FASHION DIRECTOR, ALEX BADIA. STYLE EDITOR, NAOMI ROUGEAU.
Jaeger-LeCoultre 40 mm Reverso One Duetto Jewellery in 18-karat pink gold and diamonds, $79,560. Right: Chopard 32 mm vintage Happy Diamonds in 18-karat white gold and diamonds, $19,930, analogshift.com; Ghiaia cotton safari jacket, $1,426; Eton cotton T-shirt, 358; Hermès denim trousers, $1,674.
Audemars Piguet 34 mm vintage automatic ultrathin watch in 18-karat white gold and diamonds, $9,300, classicwatchny.com. Right: Cartier 41.4 mm Tortue in platinum, $35,600, limited to 200; Gabriela Hearst hand-knit cashmere sweater, $2,500; Officine Générale cotton-poplin shirt, $315.
Breguet 40 mm Classique Ref. 7147 in 18-karat white gold, $37,468; Brioni wool and cashmere overcoat, $12,233, and silk knit crewneck sweater, $2,224; Louis Vuitton wool track pants, $2,120, and wool hooded jacket, $5,002. Right: Patek Philippe 39 mm Calatrava Ref. 6119R-001 in 18-karat rose gold, $52,791.
Piaget 45 mm Andy Warhol in 18-karat rose gold, $69,198. Right: Rolex 29 mm vintage King Midas Ref. 4342 in 18-karat yellow gold, $28,301, classicwatchny.com; Brunello Cucinelli denim shirt, $1,586; Tom Ford cotton chinos, $1,259; Berluti leather belt, $1,132.
Model: Arthur Sales
Grooming: Amanda Wilson
Senior market editor and casting: Luis Campuzano
Photo director: Irene Opezzo
Photo assistant: Alejandro Suarez
Prop stylist: Elizabeth Derwin
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14/04/2025
07/04/2025
