Hello and welcome to the Warn and Wound podcast. My name is Zach Zan, managing editor at Warn and Wound. I'm joined today by Zach Weiss, co-founder.
of Worn and Wound, and we are on the floor at Palix. But for Watches and Wonders 2025, Zach, how does it feel to be here? It feels amazing. It feels like... feels like you never left right yeah yeah i mean kind of honestly yeah there's a whole year and a lot of build up but yeah now it's like i was just here yeah yeah uh so we just finished up With day one of meetings at Watches and Wonders, this podcast of all goes according to plan will drop on the morning of day two.
or afternoon if you're on the East Coast in the United States. But we thought we'd give you a little recap of what we saw today, what we're looking forward to, and just kind of our general thoughts on the show so far. Because we did see some big kind of like core.
yeah worn around brands today as we always do uh on the first day um before we do that let's do a wrist check uh what are you wearing today zach i have on the otsuka low tech number 7.5 this is the first time i've had this on on a podcast Congratulations on the new pickup. And that's a recent acquisition for you. And that is kind of like the perfect watches and wonders watch. I feel like it's a good one. It's a good one. Definitely a hype branch right now.
definitely when people know what it is and they see it they go like oh my god you know yeah usually with an expletive and then they want to see it um which is fun it's engaging and it happens just be a very nice watch to wear even though it's kind of like an oddly shaped watch. It's not like a doesn't feel ganglier. Yeah, that's very cool. I'm wearing my James Lamb origin series today because I felt like I wanted to wear it independent.
brand that was kind of neutral um and not uh represented here so um that is that is i feel like it just basically like i have a few watches with me like i did bring a tutor because that's always good to have the tutor meeting the comparison with other yeah because you never know what they're going to come out with so
it's solid to have plus i mean you can't go wrong with wearing the 54 if uh right you know i don't know i need to but then otherwise i have like indies or vintage so that yeah yeah that's smart You don't want to do that. Yeah, you don't want to walk into a meeting and immediately put someone off by your watch choice. That's an unforced error. It can be easily avoided.
So let's talk a little bit about the meetings that we attended. Our first meeting of the day was Tudor. That's historically been the first meeting that we take at Watches and Wonders. And they had three, I would say, kind of like key releases. The Black Bay 68, a new Black Bay 58 in Burgundy. And what's the third one? Oh, the Tudor Pelagos.
ultra ultra yeah we've been getting confused all day one of their deeper pro in the name it's a tutor pelagos ultra which is their kind of like most professional uh Tudor Pelagos diver which is their most professional diver so what of the three do you have a favorite of those? I mean I would say like of the three the one that maybe has left the biggest impact was the burgundy 58 um just because it was a striking color um and you know i feel like there's been
it's been we've been talking about oh this year there'll be another 58 or whatever and there hasn't been right so finally they've come back to the 50 and i feel like we know why i mean they really were just waiting to get the master chronometer thing happening and that sort of like has started all their series over again and
gives them permission to throw in the new buckles and all that kind of stuff, you know, the T-fit clasp rather. So yeah, that one, yeah, I don't realistically think it's a watch I will get. But when it was on my wrist, I was really enjoying it. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's really nice. It's a very vibrant red. It's a lot of red. Vibrant, but deep. It was both like shocking and yet not obnoxious. And you came up with the code red.
nickname the inspired by the people everyone please spread the word it's called code it's uh it's inspired by a 1990s prototype right yeah and i mean code red mountain dew was that late 90s early 2000s it's the same general 90s
I don't know. Same sense of kind of elder millennial nostalgia. Yeah. We also could have called it like red extreme without an E or something. Yeah. You know, yeah. Similar. No, I like the code red. I think that's fun. Get yourself a. Go to Taco Bell and get yourself a giant extra large Mountain Dew code red and a Crunchwrap Supreme wearing your Tudor black babe.
burgundy slash code red yeah i think that's the way to go dude in taco bell yeah for sure um i really like the tudor pelagos ultra um it kind of like It's very impressive because it's a thousand meters water resistant. So basically double the water resistance of a standard Pelagos, but it's not thicker. In fact, it's a small, a tiny bit thinner than that original.
Pelagos, which I think is pretty impressive. Also, just a bunch of very subtle, small improvements, refinements. The Rehot is basically gone, so that eliminates some of the thickness right there. I will throw in that, like, while I understand why they did that, obviously. Part of, I always loved that original Rehot, and I was sad to see it gone on the FXD, and I was sad to see it gone on the 39.
here they had like more of a purpose to get rid of it i feel like but i guess maybe the purpose was always thinning down the watches like that maybe just adds an unnecessary mill or so but i like that it It always made it feel like a very contemporary take on a Tudor sub. Sure. Yeah. And it was distinctive also to the peli. It was very noticeable because the way the loom was kind of like set in the reha. Yeah, exactly. It was that cutout thing that was like particularly cool.
so that's a change that i think maybe it might be controversial with some people i i imagine i think most will probably appreciate the slightly thinner uh thinner thinner case um but we'll see I mean, it's very slightly thinner. It's not like a thin watch. No, it's not dramatically thinner, but it is noticeable, I think. And the whole watch is just a little bit more refined. It's just very subtly different. It feels like an upgrade.
in my opinion. It has a little bit of teal on the dial. I like the teal a lot. Teal's a nice, nice touch. And one other thing I realized like after when I was like writing about it a bit was that the former generation of classic Pelagos, I don't know how you call them, like the, you know, braceleted 42 millimeter Pelagos Cs were five lines of text, right? They like went from two lines up to the, at least four and then five, which was...
I mean, that was the most verbose looking watch ever. And it was kind of like, I mean, it was a little unfortunate. I eventually got over it because you just got used to it. But it was really an unnecessary amount of text. Then back down to three. It looks, and that really cleans it up. to me um yeah and those three lines being Pelagos master chronometer and then the depth rating and like it's good um the extra text never really bothered me I like to read you know so it's uh
I like to read the same five sentences over and over and over. Every time I check the time. Yeah, it's I know that's the thing that people really. you know drag on tutor and another brands for too is text on the dial um the the the three lines of text definitely make for a cleaner dial like all in all the dial is just cleaner in every sense of the word um It's very, very good. The markers are also a little enlarged. The hands are a little enlarged.
at first i didn't realize that and then we were told that and then you realize like you can kind of see how they are wider and a little chunkier cole described it cole pennington who was in the presentation this morning and walked us through the collection kind of described as like a maxi dial yeah sort of in theory which i think is a good comparison point yeah for sure for sure um and then speaking of maxi the last tutor uh that uh that they took us through was the tutor black bay 68
Yeah. Which is just a bigger Black Bay. A bigger Black Bay kind of in the lineage of the 58 and the 54 with, we're told, identical proportions. Obviously, the new one is larger. but in terms of like the ratio of you know height to lug to lug like it's all it's all identical um but this is a 43 millimeter black bay um which is uh you know basically that's what it sounds like it's it's a big black bay And Tudor tells us that there was just a desire to...
They heard from their clientele that they wanted a larger watch, and so they gave it to them. And I think that's sort of a theme with Tudor really over the last couple of years is responding to customer feedback and giving people what they want. We saw that last year with the Black Bay.
GMT? Or the 54 GMT? Or the 58? 58 GMT. That's right. And something similar is going on here, I think, with the... with the larger black bay 68 yeah yeah for sure yeah i mean it's iterative in a way new case size it's not all that exciting there was one thing you were very excited about it though yes so the uh for the first time on one of these kind of like what should we call them like the year black bays the ones that call out a specific
I don't know if there's like a term for them because they kind of exist in a little sub area next to the standard Black Bay, but it doesn't have rivets on the bracelet. Yeah. Which makes for, I think, a much cleaner look. I was never a fan of those faux rivets. They don't do anything. Except for add oodles of style. They're oodles of style. It makes you feel like you're cosplaying in Rivetland. It's kind of...
I'm cosplaying as somebody who was alive in 1954. So anyway. So that'll be something that I think most people will appreciate because I think those rivets are controversial. And beautiful, but controversial.
yeah yeah well they're gone now so um not from my heart well you still you have a 54 with rivets yeah and i would never ever get the 68 which is which is what's great about having watching every size you can imagine it's like it really there's not like something to watch will come out you'll be like i love it why is it x yeah well now it's like i don't care that that's big because they got it all Yeah. And something else kind of related to that that we should mention about the Black Bay 50.
eight in burgundy is that it's also available on a five-link bracelet yeah which was really nice that size so again that's just tudor kind of like filling out little holes yeah in the collection there's now you know there's now a five-link bracelet that will fit a 58. yeah and there's a metis movement in that watch as well and so they're just they continue to kind of like year by year expand yeah all these things that kind of look like one-offs into more of a collection so
Can I stop and take a step back and ask a question to you about Tudor and your thoughts on Tudor? So, you know, the BlackBate 58 metacertified burgundies, I think it was 4,600 on the five-link bracelet. Yeah. The Pelagos Ultra, I really want to call it deep every time, but the Pelagos Ultra was like $5,900. Do you think it's the same value proposition once it's almost hitting $6,000? Like $6,000 with taxes.
as it is as a sub 5k like as tutors are sub 5k it's essentially the same movement i mean obviously that one's titanium thousand meter all that kind of thing you know um yeah it's tough to say it feels I don't feel like it's overpriced. I would never say that watch is too expensive, which is the thing I dislike most about the commentary around watches is people who just say, oh, that's too expensive. I can't believe you're charging that for that watch.
You know, holding it and trying it on today, it felt like a watch that they could get away with charging that. amount for. I don't know if I would walk out of the AD or the boutique or whatever thinking, oh man, I just stole from Tudor. I just got the deal of a lifetime. But I don't think it's a wildly ridiculous... price. But it's not going to add to the conversation that Tudor is a screaming value all the time. Yeah.
Yeah, which is sort of like that sort of was the conversational, you know, several years back, like, can't believe all you're getting for. $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 or whatever. I think it's interesting. I mean, they're sort of leaving the three to four range currently and like not getting four to six and that'll leave an opening.
for somebody else to move in you know i don't think anyone else will have the ability to put a movement like they did at that price point yeah time soon but and it's interesting because that's i mean One of the reasons Tudor's had so much success is because they had an opening in that price range when Omega started going up market. Yeah, exactly. And so now, you know, if we are seeing Tudor do the same thing. Yeah. I don't know. That's just. Kind of send it out. Send a message, psychic message.
long jeans this is your opportunity come and get it you got to drop a few by a couple grand and but you could own that price point yeah yeah uh maybe maybe not yeah no it's interesting i mean everything year by year everything gets a little bit more expensive i still think that
um there's there's a distinct i think difference i think between the pricing structure at tudor and the pricing structure at omega i think that there's still kind of like some daylight there so they're not competing directly against each other but You're right that Tudor's creeping up like so many other brands are. For sure, for sure. Should we move on to Grand Seiko? Let's do it. I mean, I had a meeting between those two. Oh, okay. Yeah, let's... You know what? Actually, I'm going to...
I had a group meeting with Longa, but I'll say that we actually have a more personalized meeting with Longa tomorrow. Okay, so maybe we can talk about that. Are we recording a podcast tomorrow, though? TBD. Yeah. So I don't want to make false promises. So I'll just say I quickly got to see. The new Longo watches, four watches, really three with one and two versions. God, I want to say like master perpetual chronometer. That's not what it's called at all. It's a minute repeater perpetual.
A crazy, crazy watch in true longer form, an ultra complication. Two of the more expensive complications typically combined into one. Voila, over 700,000 euros, naturally very limited. But incredibly beautiful. Shocking. Yeah. Yeah. Then there was the honey gold Odysseus, which is.
and kind of incredible looking also the honey gold is really beautiful and they put like a tobacco brown dial in there which like is sort of a perfect combination there um so there's that hundred of those never gonna see one Sorry. Did they tell you when they're going to start delivering them? No, of course not. Of course not. Somebody noted they got a little KJU and they asked the prices initially. But yeah, no, you're not gonna, you know, that's...
i'm sure you get your order in now and maybe you hear back from them in a couple of years yeah i'm sure i think they're still finishing the titanium ones yeah literally finishing them yeah i mean notoriously it takes a long time for those watches to be to make it to market But I think the watch that people will be most excited about in reality, because they're not as insane or limited, is the new 1815 in 34mm, which is a size they haven't had since they first...
since like first debuted so uh the original uh i forgot the line honestly the original big date manual wound maybe it's even saxonia or something we're 34 millimeters um Chris has one who's worked with us. Really cool size, very unisex. Not that any of them are not unisex. I say that because I've been listening to marketing stuff all day. This is what happens to you, engineering. It poisons your brain.
Poison my brain. But it's small. It's 72-hour power reserve and 6.5 millimeters thick. Like, it's a really, you know, just a very cool, very tiny watch. I'll leave it at that. Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing the longest stuff later this, I think at my meetings on tomorrow. I don't know. Tomorrow at 1230.
Thank you. I'm glad someone's keeping track. Yeah, I have my calendar open. Otherwise, I wouldn't remember what meetings I went to today. Yeah, no, that I mean, that sounds great. I'm always excited to see like the longest super watch that they. that they put out every year, like last year was the data graph lumen perpetual. I mean, then
It's worth noting when they release those watches, they also make one gigantic one for the booth. Yeah. So the booth changes every year with like a five foot diameter super watch. So what was it this year? It's the new minute repeater. Okay.
Because it's been the Odysseus before. Last year was the Lumen. Yeah. Which actually did glow. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they put a lot of effort into these things. Yes. And they had it, like, hidden until... yeah even though the embargo i think had lifted like the show wasn't open yet like when we when we got here at like eight o'clock there weren't so it was yeah
Anyway, showmanship. It's alive and well here at Palo Expo. All right, Grant Seiko. You had seen these watches before. You had a little visit from Joe Kirk in the office. Yeah. Made a video on... on a couple of the new Grand Seikos and got to see the collection. The highlight for me, and I think for you too, was the new... a new watch with a very new, very advanced, highly accurate spring jive movement in a 37 millimeter Evolution 9 style case.
Tell us a little bit about this movement for people who might not. Sure, sure. I think it's the 9RH2. Am I being that wrong? That's what I think it is. And what is significant about this is that they classify it as ultra. UFA, Ultra Fine Accuracy, which is like a riff off of the Very Fine Accuracy from 1969, which were mechanical watches that were regulated to basically within a month.
you know deviation one second a month deviation yeah which is still impressive to this day that's like plus minus two seconds or something crazy like that so like that was a real flex for them in 1969. I think literally meant to kind of be a shot across the bow. So then just being like, you're not the only ones who make great watches. And it just has this has a mythical lore, obviously, in Grand Staco stuff.
And they've brought out VFA before in limited editions. But this is a whole new, you're going to see this regularly now, UFA. And what it is is spring drives, which are typically... plus minus 15 seconds a month or plus minus 10 seconds a month for the kind of fancier ones. Now, plus minus 20 seconds a year, which is just, you know, insanely. Yeah. So just, I mean, they make the claim.
and I believe them, that it's the most accurate movement with a mainspring. They have to be careful because obviously 9F is still more accurate than that, but you're getting into that HAQ level with something that still is largely mechanical. And that's incredibly cool. I mean, I feel like Spring Drive, I think, is what turned me on to Grand Seiko initially. It was like, the watches were beautiful, but then one day I just...
It was like spring drive. I got to get into that, you know? So I'm really excited to see that. And then the watch itself is so beautiful, like that case and that. Yeah.
micro-addressed clasp. I mean, it just, that watch hits so many lists, like checkpoints for me, like titanium and 37 and this awesome movement. Like it's, it's, I don't know, Grand Seiko keeps doing, they did this last year. I feel like the, um, the manual round yeah the 9r 8 4 5 god i guess he's all messed up but um like last year that was like pinnacle level feeling right you know yep they're hitting these
I don't know. It's really impressive. It really is, you know? Yeah, I mean, so obviously, like, the headline is really the movement. And the movement is impressive, but, like... That wouldn't matter if the watch itself wasn't also like really great. And like everything about the watch is aesthetically is just really spot on. Like the dial, it's a new dial texture. It looks wonderful.
um yeah ice frost forest something like that the titanium watch has kind of like it's a very pale blue i think unfortunately for me i like the platinum one a little bit better the blue and the platinum is really nice it's a little bit darker yeah um but once again this is something they're launching they're not gonna like leave it alone yeah um
I feel like because it's a new movement, and I feel like this is what we're seeing with the 9R, 8, 4, or 5, is that it's going to take them a little while to probably build up production to then start releasing iterations, because they didn't iterate on that at all this year. Right. There's only two watches right now with that. So I feel like it might be another two or three years before we see more of these. But then, yeah, I mean, I almost wonder if they're going to discontinue older 9Rs.
probably not probably not because i would bump everything up yeah they'll still need like a yeah you know kind of like the workhorse caliber yeah you know um yeah it's uh it was a very very cool watch glad to see that in person um after kind of like hearing about it from you for the last you know week or week or two yeah i was really excited when i saw that yeah like and i like joe like
put it in front of me and Devin when, like, you know, we were sitting there. And, like, I mean, expletives were used. Excited expletives. Holy shucks, was said at least once. got to keep this PG, you know, but, um, yeah, I mean, that is just, that's just catnip for grand snake owners and it should be for watching her. It's like that is a achievement of a watch. I think. Yeah. Yeah.
The other notable release from Grand Sego this year is a new Golden Lion version of the Tentagraph with kind of a crazy case with like Joe said, there were like upwards of 40 facets on this. on this case, like highly angular design, very intricate. Really cool watch on a rubber strap, the first rubber strap. on a Grand Seiko, which is hard to believe. Which was also a very Grand Seiko take on a river strap. It was like a design code kind of thing, like faceted sides. It was cool.
I like that a lot. And there's a high jewelry piece that's really crazy and extremely limited. 380K, I think, something like that. It was up there. 350 maybe. Yeah, I know. Usually they show those to us. I'm like, you know, you can always be impressed by the craftsmanship. This is the first time I think I really liked it. Yeah. You know, my tastes are going haywire. That's what that's what being in Switzerland does to you. It just kind of makes you.
Yeah, I don't know. It gets really into the high jewelry stuff. Yeah. Speaking of high jewelry, that might be a good transition to my last meeting of the day that I just came from moments before we hit record on this podcast, which is Cartier.
As always with Cartier, just lots of insane, incredibly rare, expensive stuff that I will never see again outside of Watch the Wonders. The big hit, the clear... hit of the show i think is the new um uh privet collection uh tank agiche which is their kind of like jumping hour um watch with, you know, it's in a tank case shape, but with apertures for the hours and the minutes, just like, you know, longtime favorite.
watch of many uh you know many serious Cartier collectors and enthusiasts uh people have been asking for this I think for a very long time that's one that also like maybe four or five years ago started to get like more and more started to get high yeah and became like
one of the ultimate like you know i don't know it's my crash level but it's yeah approaching i mean that's it should be like in my opinion it's better than the crash i'd rather have a tank i'd rather than a crash for sure how do you pronounce it Tank a guichet, I believe. I said guichet. So tank.
It's not guilloche. Guilloche is an entirely different French word. No, I know. It's a different thing. I'm just trying not to embarrass myself later. That's okay. Americans get a free pass on a lot of... The pink jump hour. Yeah. So they have a few different versions. The ones that we saw in the meeting were a gold version with the hour aperture at the top and then the minute aperture running.
and like a crescent you know shape at the at the bottom that's the traditional layout um but the really cool one that's like kind of that everyone's like buzzing about here is the platinum version with the hour aperture in the top left corner of the dial and it's like kind of flipped 90 degrees or 45 degrees actually and the the minute window is similarly kind of like in the corner of the opposite end so it's sort of like like a driver's tank is that the concept of it
i don't know if that was the i don't know if it was if they thought of it in that sense but it's sort of a similar principle that everything's just sort of like tilted um a little bit um just kind of like a long uh different different plane um yeah it's just incredibly cool um that one's i think i mentioned platinum um yeah so it has the red accents which is like which is great um
yeah very very impressive um very impressive watch and all the watches they showed us were similarly impressive it's also a fun meeting because people are just it's fun to watch people gawk at this stuff yeah i'm kind of sad i didn't get to you know put that into my schedule because the cartier meeting is like we joked last year in our video it's it's the wonder side of this yes you know for sure i mean if my first cartier meeting several years ago they had that like jeweled balloon watch
which was like they're like pinch it pinch the balloon you're like really yeah like a million dollars you're like yeah you know it's it's just like it's fun it's really fun yeah yeah um so yeah cardi is great i'll write some more about uh about my cardi experience uh cat has a meeting with them in a couple of days specifically for photos so yeah um you won't have to suffer through my my
inadequate photography. You have like 20 seconds to take. Yeah. It's also like a very it's a very hectic meeting because it's like it's a packed room and there's like almost 100 watches probably literally that they're passing around. You have a very short time period with them. So should I talk about my high jewelry?
meeting that was in tandem to yours yeah please do so i had a well obviously my first meeting with bulgari at watches and wonders because it's their first year at watches and wonders they've sort of been a I think a big missing brand from here they were always a part of Baselworld in fact when you used to go to Baselworld they were like the first quarter it felt like of the of the floor on your left so they had a really commanding presence there and then
yeah they just haven't been a part of this so and they have a commanding presence this year here huge huge booth huge booth that you see it's the first thing you see in that main concourse like even before like rolex and patek so that tells you something about their it's such a
I mean, I don't know. I mean, Bulgari is like, I guess the tentacle brand of LMU MH for watches, you know, really they make that. Yeah. I mean, when you combine it with like their jewelry business and everything, it's like, yeah, they're huge. Yeah. It's there. Cartier. I mean, it's kind of funny because there has been at times a little bit of like a war on that level between LB Mage and Richemont. So in this building, it's nothing but peace, hugs, and handshakes. But, you know.
Cartier's, Richemont's, like, a feather in their cap. Yeah. But anyway, so I had the meeting, and they really, it was funny, they had, they really presented only two novelties in terms of, like, video and talk, and one was their new... ultra tourbillon octophanissimo which is now the world's thinnest tourbillon at one point whatever one very very very ultra thin as they do super cool made out of tungsten carbide
so that it like won't break snap basically so it's like an ultra rigid material it's one of those watches where to make it that thin the base plate is the back of the watch kind of a thing unfortunately there's only one of those and it is in a glass case so that one they did not hand around the other one was the serpenti eterna which there's their serpenti is a super iconic jewelry watch it's like a snake that wraps around the wrist it's very i mean it's
one of the iconic ladies traditionally ladies watches yeah and they're they're they're gnarly you know but it's like so what they did was they tried to make like an ultra modern version of it basically um And so it's totally streamlined. The snake isn't a chain or like an expanding sort of like link contraption anymore. Instead, it's a hinged bracelet. And it's just very smooth. Everything's smoothed out and takes a little bit more of a snake.
form to it um uh and then so then they pass out watches so they they had other novelties that they just didn't talk about there so there's like Other new octophenissimo variations like a sandblasted rose gold perpetual. fucking finissimo which like the finissimo perpetual with the retrograde is a super cool looking watch and sandblasted gold is really uncommon so like it's a very fun thing to look at um an eight day out of like carbon i don't even know some crazy stuff
Where I want to get to with this is that I got to put on the Serpenti Aeterna. How was that? It was great. It was a great experience. I was a gaggle of... of media ladies from another country I'm not quite sure where they thought it was really hilarious I was putting this on so I had like an encore of
laughter as i put it on and um but that's what you do when you're and when you're in a bulgari i mean we've done this at uh i remember at a lvmh watch week event in new york a couple years ago there was a bulgari was presenting their whatever serpentine that year and every male you know media person writer they're like they all we all take take our turn kind of like putting on because i think it's important to understand like the tactile experience yeah of it because it's not
it's not whatever you think it is in your head before you put it on it's like a very like they like they got it like tactile exactly what they exactly how they wanted and Yeah, and like as you'd expect from a whatever six-figure piece of high jewelry, it's like incredibly beautiful, well-made, finished to the nth degree. And so this one's double-hinged, so it's actually pretty easy to get on your wrist. And like, it fit my wrist pretty well.
And it's like, I have to say, there's definitely a certain type of arm and wrist, like a fully sleeve tattooed super cool dude would make that watch look really cool. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. I'm not quite there. I'm far from there. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely not there either. But I still like I really appreciate that. Like, it's a real kind of triumphal design. Yeah, it's very, yeah, it's very cool. Yeah. That was my Bulgar experience.
I've had a Bulgar experience. I'm glad someone on our team did. I couldn't fit a Bulgarian meeting into my schedule, so I'm glad we were able to get in there.
Let's close out with our little indie experience today. We had back-to-back meetings this afternoon with Rescence and with Chapek. And the Rescence meeting is always a lot of fun because I feel like we... like as you know as a team at worn around like i feel like we really get presence and like they kind of understand like we have a good relationship with them i think that comes from like a shared sort of like philosophy on um
you know just on like on watchmaking and watch design and so i always really enjoy that meeting um rule breakers yeah iconoclasts yeah yeah yeah that's what we are yeah real iconoclasts um so this is my first look and yours too i think of the at the type 7 their new integrated bracelet um style sports watch um this watch has been the subject of a lot of um i don't know like There's some criticism of it, like early on when the first images and renders.
came out it's a bit shocking for wrestlers i mean i was yeah generally surprised expecting yeah it's like it's really not in their real house like they don't make sports watches they don't make watches with it's a different case shape for them they're typically super fluid shapes and ergonomic yeah like uh this one has hard angles and it's got like people the the derisive comment is oh i you know the pretty expensive for a tiso prx or whatever
If you see anyone make that comment, just know they don't know what they're talking about. Nor have they seen the watch. They might never, you know. They just have bad takes.
I was impressed with the watch in person. It's a titanium watch. The finishing is very nice. It feels great in the hand. It wears really well. To that point, though, people are like, oh, this is not finished. Rescence isn't a brand that's about... ultra high finishing not that it's not finished very well but they're not a brand that makes fancy finishing it's all about what they're doing and their dials and their you know
micro mechanics and all that stuff i do think that it's like it's worth talking about the finishing on this watch in particular though because of the bracelet and because there is more to the case on this watch than in a lot of their circular yeah no certainly i i yeah i think it's um so i think that's worth worth examining and i think that they kind of like they pass the test i think it's like it's a nice case um that doesn't overshadow the dial because the dial is oil filled and it's crazy
Yeah. Like it just it looks amazing. Yeah. And it's very weird because it's like a bubble emerging out of this very flat, like kind of overused term, but brutalist sort of mid case section because it just has flat slabs on it. Yeah. Which makes it. even weirder looking than usual somehow. And with the sunken bezel around it too, which is strange. Yeah. Sam, I was impressed with the with the type seven we also saw or I saw for the first time in person.
um the type 9 um which came out a few i guess a few months ago now um which uh i was just like very impressed by like i thought it thought it looked great thought it wore really well um it's sort of a diametrically different watch yeah that it's like It is perhaps their most wearable watch ever. It's like not challenging that way at all. It's fully polished grade five titanium. Maybe not fully polished. I forget exactly. But I don't know. It's...
I mean, to our earlier point, it doesn't really matter so much because it's really all about the dial. And the case finishing is like kind of like inconsequential. I guess what I meant by what I was saying is like, I feel like people hear a 30 by K or something and they imagine.
something like there's a special type of level of yeah they expect that there should be a certain type of handwork or something yeah exactly i'm spending this much money that the case better be whatever yeah there better be two thousand facets on this yeah you know it's that's just not there It's not what they're trying to do. Never has been. And then Chapek, which to me, I was really blown away by that new tourbillon.
I thought that was really beautiful. I love the like the way the case is constructed with basically just a mid case and two pieces of sapphire on top and bottom. I thought it was really, really very cool. And their watches are just incredibly beautiful. I'm just always blown away by the thoughtful design of those watches. We're talking about Antarctiques for the most part. I'm not really an integrated bracelet guy, but if I were...
If I were going to really extend myself and spend more than I should on an integrated sports watch, I think that's probably the brand I'd go with just because I like the dials so much. Their movements always look great. I like the movements a lot. Micro rotor movements. It's got a funky... architecture too of these like you know big finger bridges it's usually sort of grayed out it's like not your typical looking hand movement um yeah i was very impressed with the tourbillon as well um
I think particularly, once again, because of case construction. But when I was looking at photos of that, like, the dial, I don't know, didn't grab me in photos with that very large bridge across the middle. Like, it looks... I don't know, almost like too much going on kind of thing, but that didn't feel that way in person. Something that's really interesting about it that they're explaining was that the dial material is what they're calling a secret alloy.
which is some proprietary blend of precious metals that is designed for guilloche. Yeah. Which is really cool that it's like about the quality of the cut that they get out of it, which I like that thought process there. So that was basically day one. There were a couple other meetings in there. Kat and I went to IWC and saw actually a bunch of stuff that we can't talk about yet. I went to show part. How was that? It was very cool. These are just such beautiful watches.
I feel like Chopard is gaining in popularity right now, and I think for good reason. I haven't had that much personal experience with them, so it's really nice to get hands-on with a range of them, including, you know... extraordinarily high-end ones like a minute repeater um but they're they're they're just very beautiful i don't know what to say like um there was these quattro models which have four barrels in them
So they have nine day power reserves, but they're 38, 39 millimeters and like hand wound. So they're very thin. Like they wear like your average.
42 hour watch you know but so incredible watchmaking and then just beautiful dials and everything um yeah it was just really nice and they had a really nice exhibit actually of from their museum of basically one-off women's watches from like 1960s and 70s with the advertisement as well that went with that one um and these are like just the funkiest things giant oval shapes right like things you'd i would have expected to see more from um
uh not chanel from uh the brand you went to cartier cartier feeling to them to me um because that's just the jewelry brand that i'm most aware of um but then the ads were very like fossey looking kind of uh just funky things yeah it was it's a it's a fun little exhibit that's cool that's cool yeah um so just to close out anything that you're looking forward to over the next couple days and how would you describe
the overall mood and tenor of the show. Because I think going in, the prevailing narrative was this is going to be a very subdued show. The watch market's not doing all that great. right now um it felt kind of quiet like in the first half of the day and things like really sort of picked up and i felt like there was like a little bit more excitement probably just as people were in more meetings and saw more watches yeah um
I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on that? I won't say it feels somber in here, but it is definitely quieter than it has been in other years. We've not had trouble getting... a chair when we've wanted to yeah sort of joking about like can you can you sit down yeah and like my look thing i was looking forward to i joked it was a place to sit i've i found a place to sit so um but in terms of the watches
I don't know, like, I'd say it's less exciting, but then I start thinking about it and it's quite exciting. You know, like, tomorrow we're going to be with Rolex, going to see those new watches, and, like, there's obviously a lot to unpack with. the land dweller aesthetics and everything but like them launching a whole new movement is kind of crazy that's very unexpected especially considering what it does and then seiko launching a new movement and high accuracy like that's really exciting
stuff to me yeah um yeah i don't i don't i don't know if i answered the question no i think that's a good i think there's like there's exciting things that are happening i mean rolex is not like bubbling under the surface like by any means like they're the talk of the show yeah for sure but like
every for a Rolex movement to be the talk of the show that's like a very kind of like nerdy thing and I don't know I wonder how that's going to translate over the course of the next you know several weeks and months as this is like all digested by
by people like i think there's a very nerdy take on a movement like yeah we were both saying neither of us have like read enough about it to quite digest it yet but like it has a new escapement in it that's based on a very old escapement plus it's high beat that's like that's a lot
in a single movement but let alone from an incredibly conservative brand yeah you know and that you have like i think that's i didn't even really consider that like you have grand seiko kind of like at the same time releasing their own sort of like throwing down the gauntlet in terms of yeah you know accuracy and precision uh caliber so um you know you there might be like watches from this show that are you know like maybe historic and remembered for a really long time even if
like the buzz around them at the moment isn't, you know, like fever pitch, like peak. Yeah. Watch them wonders. So yeah, I agree. Yeah. I have 13 meetings tomorrow. It's a lot.
yeah yeah i have a i have a similar amount of meetings and they're uh this year we decided uh that it's it's like not worth trying to get back to the press center to write as much so you might as well just take as many meetings as possible yeah so loaded up but it's it's more fun i have to say i think so i don't want i mean the yeah who wants to spend the entire show sitting in the press lounge
writing. I try to avoid that, honestly. The point is to see watches and to meet with brands. The writing can happen later. 100%. All right. Well, that's our Watches and Wonders day one wrap up. Thanks, Zach. Always fun to relive something that we just went through hours ago. Might as well.
I don't know if we'll be back for another episode. We'll try to record another podcast. We'll soon record a follow-up. Yeah, there'll definitely be a follow-up. If you might remember last year's mid-week episode, it's got a little cracked out. Because we get cracked out. Yeah, I'm doing this. Already there, honestly. We also just didn't have immediate plans after the show tonight. Yeah. This is brought to you by our lack of dinner plans. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, thank you, everyone, for tuning in and listening. We hope you're enjoying the Watches and Wonders coverage. Definitely stay tuned to the website for all of that and to social media. Our Instagram, of course, has a lot of... stuff kind of happening in real time as we're here at the show. And we'll see you again next week, if not before. Until then, take care.