ORIS – Kazuki Nakajima Limited Edition
To match the verve of Williams Formula One driver Kazuki Nakajima, Oris has created the Limited Edition Oris Kazuki Nakajima as part of its long-term partnership with the F1 team.
Kazuki Nakajima
Aside from rudimentary embellishments such as his emblazoned signature and logo, this all black number also features a chockfull of thoughtful personalized details such as the red and white second hand that recalls the colors of his home country, Japan, and the openings in the dial fashioned after the breathing slits in his helmet.
Matched in power by its automatic Oris 635 movement, the timepiece also bears a layered, two-piece black dial with printed indexes and a date and day display at ‘3′ for an athletic overlay. Clad in a dark, menacing shell, the Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coated stainless steel piece screams with sporty elements such as its F1 tyre imprinted rubber strap and the highlighted ‘8′ numeral on the minute scale (Kazuki’s number).
Limited to 1,088 pieces, this robust number is not for the faint-hearted. And in case you want to hit the sea after the tracks, this watch is water resistant up to 100m.
ARMAND NICOLET – S05
Refreshed and recharged, Armand Nicolet’s S05 sports line evolves to a higher order. Trading in the quiet aggression of its former self for barefaced brawn, the latest variants get into the thick of the action with sleek 44mm titanium cases, rubber coated bezel and pushers, as well as brazen dials with raised SuperLuminova coated indexes for enhanced legibility.
And where many other sports offerings limit themselves to the ubiquitous chronograph function, Armand Nicolet proves that elegant complications and athleticism don’t make strange bedfellows. The SOS’s four variants – day and date, complete calendar, chronograph as well as chronograph with complete calendar – trumpet the brand’s everyday ethos brilliantly.
For those after gutsy chic, a rousing DLC-coated titanium get-up teems with lethal dynamism (Read Raven Maven Rushes). Water resistant to 200m, it comes in a choice of black, black and grey or silvered dials with rubber, calf or alligator strap.
TAG HEUER – Monaco 40th Anniversary Re-edition
Steve McQuee
Forty years after its birth as the world’s first square-cased water resistant sports watch, and deified a year later, thanks to Steve McQueen who famously strapped it on during the set of his 1970 movie smash, Le Mans, TAG Heuer’s Monaco remains an icon for fans of sport watches, with the ability to turn perfectly coherent gentlemen into squealing school boys with each new roll-out.
This year, the brand has gone the whole nine yards to celebrate its 40th birthday. There is an ultra-robust concept watch, the Monaco Twenty Four (read about it in Lab Dance), an all-white beauty for the lasses (see Dame Game), and two limited editions – the Calibre 12 Chronograph and the Automatic Calibre 11 Chronograph which are the subjects of our affection in this review.
DANIEL ROTH – Endurer
Joining the likes of ‘classical‘ brands like Piaget and Breguet, Daniel Roth has turned to the sports realm this year to cast a wider net. Like its moniker, Daniel Roth’s new sports line spells tenacity and strength from its design to its mechanical innards. Inspired by the ancient Japanese martial art Kendo, the oval dial’s grid pattern evokes the lines of a Kendoka’s mask. And just as the martial art form strives for unity of mind and body, the Endurer unites all of the brand’s signatures including the double elliptical case, concave bezel with six top-screws, and an underlying technical triumph that underscores its laudable mechanics.
Befitting the intrinsic dynamism of this new sports offering is the exclusive automatic DR1306 calibre. Endowed with what the marque terms as a “Chrono Sprint” function, its chronograph display is scaled down to a single counter (as opposed to the more common double or triple counters) that features two numeral tracks, one for the hours and another for the minutes for easy readability. Upping the ante is a single pusher at ‘7′ that controls the chronograph’s start, stop and reset modes. Elsewhere, with a 41 x 44mm case crafted out of steel and coated with a proprietary Black Tich titanium carbide compound that enhances the watch’s corrosion resistance, the Endurer certainly lives up to its name. Available with black rubber strap and water resistant to 100m.
