THE
HOROLOGICAL
HIT LIST
HIT LIST
There may be no such thing as the best watch,
but 2022 was a vintage year for great new
timepieces at every price point. Here are eight
to take note of
Virtually every watchmaking brand claims some breakthrough every year, but admittedly it
requires a suspension of disbelief on a grand scale to accept. There is no real explanation
for this constant emphasis on the new and novel, but industry legend Jean-Claude Biver had
a rationale, which we will paraphrase here: if you are the first to come up with some sexy
innovation or other, you will likely have success with it. Well, brands have been trying this long
before Biver joined the trade, and it does not always work. Abraham-Louis Breguet tried to
make automatic winding a thing in the 18th century, with the help of Abraham-Louis Perrelet.
This did not go anywhere, but Breguet’s other innovations — including the tourbillon and
chiming mechanisms — did, so his name lives on with great glory. Perrelet, on the other hand,
is barely known outside watchmaking circles.
In the wake of the pandemic and the attendant enforced shutdowns of watchmaking sites, the
industry emerged with renewed vigour, attempting to do justice to powerful forces of demand.
The world was hungry for brilliant timepieces — and fortunately, 2022 was full of them.

DEEP
IMPACT

The dive watch is one of the world’s most popular types of watches, if not the most. It
celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2023, and Rolex got ahead of its competitors with the
world’s ultimate dive watch, the Oyster Perpetual Deepsea Challenge. The water
resistance on this behemoth of a watch is an unprecedented — and truly mind-boggling —
11,000m, which is about as deep as you can go in the ocean without digging. While most
dive watches are able to take you to depths that you would never survive, this one literally
goes beyond what is possible for any man-made machine; dive watches are typically built
to withstand about 20 per cent more than the rating, so if the ocean is deeper in parts than
we think it is, Rolex might have us covered. For collectors, it is significant that this watch is
the first to be offered in full titanium, case and bracelet, and thus may foreshadow the long-awaited introduction of this material across Rolex’s collections. Rolex says the RLX titanium used makes this 50mm tool watch roughly 30 per cent lighter than the same in steel.
VALUE
PROPOSITION
Attractively-priced chronographs are hardly unusual, but immensely popular ones from
hundred-year-old manufactures such as the Tissot PRX Chronograph are. After shaking up
the watch world with the PRX time-only quartz models in 2020, Tissot naturally followed up
with an automatic, and now a complication. The form factor gives Tissot the edge with the
PRX, with the collection bringing the sports watch to more wrists than ever before. What is
also different is the name Tissot, a watchmaker in business since 1853; the badge alone keeps
enthusiasts interested in what is ultimately a well-designed 42mm steel chronograph that is
perfectly in line with contemporary tastes. It certainly helps that the watch has better-than-expected finishing on the automatic calibre, an exhibition case back, and a relatively generous power reserve of 60 hours; none of these elements are normal in watches below $3,000.

DUAL
NATURED

Created by Patek Philippe in 1996, the annual calendar has since developed into a desirable
complication for many brands, at a variety of price points. In 2022, Patek Philippe levelled
this complication up by combining it with the dual-time function — which the Geneva
brand calls Travel Time — in its signature Calatrava case. The resulting watch is the 41mm
Ref. 5326G Travel Time Annual Calendar in white gold. The central innovations here
are having the date mechanism tied to local time, and having all the main time functions
controlled by the crown, rather than with pushers as is typical for Travel Time watches. For
ease of use, one crown (with three adjustment positions) controls everything. While this
combination of features should be a no-brainer, it is relatively rare. One of the problems
for users here is that it is all too easy to damage the movement by adjusting the watch in
ways that it should not be. Patek Philippe has taken care of this, protecting the watch from
user error (and thus avoiding a very expensive repair); the manufacture says it is virtually
impossible to desynchronise the hands, whether you set them forwards or backwards.
SOUND
MACHINE
Watchmaking is filled with hyperbole, but the brands do come through sometimes — as
Omega did with the 45.5mm Sedna gold Speedmaster Chrono Chime, the first watch
to chime the elapsed time recorded on the chronograph. Normally, so-called repeating
watches use tiny hammers and gongs to sound out the hours, quarters and minutes, or some
combination of these variables; this is already considered the pinnacle of fine watchmaking,
and Omega brought this mechanism to wristwatches first, in 1892. On the other hand, the
chronograph records elapsed seconds, minutes and hours, displaying this information on
subdials, typically; a more complex type of chronograph records more than one timing
event, like two laps in a race. Both repeater and chronograph mechanisms require separate
gear trains, and a variety of specialised parts. While a few brands have created repeater-chronograph multi-complications, only Omega has dared to do the unthinkable by linking the
chiming mechanism with the chronograph — now you can time events in the dark!

SUBTLETY
PERSONIFIED

Parmigiani Fleurier is a manufacture intent on going its own way, as demonstrated in the
quirky Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, cased in steel with a platinum bezel. It happens to be
the world’s first wristwatch with a flyback second timezone indicator — pressing the pusher
at 8 o’clock causes the local time hour hand (in white gold) to leap back in place above
the home time hand (in pink gold). The other pusher, sitting atop the crown, advances the
white gold by one-hour increments when the wearer needs to track multiple timezones. In
effect, the watch only indicates two timezones on demand, and is a regular dress two-hander
otherwise. The simplicity of the design and of the complication makes it hard to believe that
this 40mm model is truly unique in the watch world. Perhaps harder to believe is that the
manufacture cooked this watch up in less than two years, when typical development time for
new features is five years.
FULL METAL
ALCHEMY
Less a breakthrough and more like pure fanservice, the Casio G-Shock GMB2100
nevertheless will be remembered and marked as the first time ever G-Shock cased its
CasiOak (a fan-created nickname; it is not used by Casio) in metal, with a metal bracelet. In
other words, there is no resin to be seen here, just steel (or black or copper IP-coated steel),
although the watch remains as indestructible as any other G-Shock in the Full Metal line.
The real story here is in the watch’s nickname, which is a reference to the way the octagonal
bezel of the CasiOak resembles a certain Gerald Genta-designed watchmaking icon. In the
past, G-Shock had stuck to its guns by keeping this line entirely in its customary resin; this all
changed in 2022 with the release of the GMB2100 in full metal. The 44.4mm (W) by 49.8mm
(L) quartz watch is solar-powered, and comes with Bluetooth connectivity and a raft of
features that fit within the brand’s tougher-than-nails ethos.
A PERENNIAL FAVOURITE AMONG ENTHUSIASTS
AND COLLECTORS, THE GMB2100 BREAKS WITH
TRADITION FOR CASIO.

MYSTERIOUS
WAYS

While we typically think of the displays on a watch dial as the elements that move, Cartier
hit upon the idea of having its entire mechanical calibre swing about freely, as it does in the
Masse Mystérieuse. Some clever watchmaker at the company must have wondered what
would happen if the entire movement could fit within the winding rotor, thus allowing said
movement to wind itself by the power of its own mass. No one had ever asked this question
before — well, no brand had ever delivered a watch that emerged from such a question. Now
a reality in a 43.5mm platinum case, the Masse Mystérieuse presents a number of questions
to collectors, not the least of which is how it can possibly power the hands dial-side. You can
actually see the entire movement, front and back, which only deepens the mystery. Another
important question is how the rotor winds the watch, given that the whole thing moves on a
shared axis.
TO THE
MOON
Undoubtedly the biggest release of 2022, the Swatch MoonSwatch made the mainstream
news thanks to the near-riots it caused. The central conceit here, to summarise, was to
make the famous Omega Moonwatch more accessible to a wider audience — which meant
making it less pricey than any Omega while still carrying the Omega badge and brand codes.
The Swatch Group, which owns both Swatch and Omega, decided that Swatch would do
the job, and the result is the MoonSwatch series of watches. Essentially, the MoonSwatch
reimagines the Speedmaster Moonwatch as a bioceramic quartz-powered collectible in
multiple colours inspired by the planets of our solar system, as well as the sun and the
moon. In terms of size, style hands, bezel and subdial configuration, the MoonSwatch is just
like the Speedmaster it pays tribute to, although the water resistance of 30m does not quite
hold up to that of the original.