A Clockwork Orange

Luxury - a word we find banded around by so many "non-luxury" classified brands these days. To my mind this is a word to be used to pin-point and categorise a very specific type of production quality, expertise's and ultimately the expense paid for such items produced with these points in-mind.

French luxury brand Hermes, who could single handily define the word luxury, stand only for the highest level of quality and have been producing covetable good since it was founded way back in 1837, and in-time for Spring-Summer holiday season continue to reign supreme with the ultimate nautical watch.

Hermes introduced the Clipper watches, which were originally designed by Henri d'Origny in 1981.  Named after old three-mastered racing ships, the watches were always nautical in nature - and the newest version arrives in an eye catching 44mm case, suggests that its owner will probably spend most its his time flitting between Mediterranean ports and Caribbean hideaways. 

The masculine and sporty design is accentuated by the black free face and orange rubber strap. Inside the steal and titanium case -luxury point proven- there's an automatic chronograph Valjoux movement, which is protected at depths of up to 200 metres.

Priced at £3,700

Available from www.hermes.com 

Transport Timepieces from TRIWA

Todays rat-race of brand messaging means having a unique way of supplying a product with a voice is always a tricky task, and requires a brand to strive for 'the next level' of consumer messaging.

Welcome then, to the simplistic genius of TRIWA - the Italian based watch maker who decided to showcase their sartorially correct and colourful timepieces through the transport system of Stockholm! The hand grips in all inner city buses have been replaced with pictures of their timepieces, showcasing a variety of styles in rainbow colours suiting any day of the week! 

This promotional exercise is of course utterly useless for actually telling the time, but perfectly frustrating enough to ensure you stop off at the nearest TRIWA retail outlet to buy one!

Luckily for us the range starts from £55 and are all available online from  http://www.triwa.com

Plastic Fantastic!

Even though celebrated British architect Will Alsop recently left his practice to concentrate on his painting, i'm glad to see he can still be coaxed from his garret for the odd design collaboration. The “Daytimer” is a polyurethane digital watch co-designed with Frederico Grazzini and produced by Alessi Watches in collaboration with Seiko. Like Alsop’s buildings, it is decidedly bright, futuristic and definitely not for the fainthearted — it would probably go pretty well with the Y-3 trainerswe posted on Tuesday, should you be that way inclined.

“Daytimer” watch by Will Alsop and Federico Grazzini, £79, www.alessi.com

Swatch Chrono Automatic Collection

The Swiss fashion watch and jewelry maker have shaken up their more "fun fashion" watches with the launch of altogether more serious Swatch Chrono Automatic Collection. The debut collection, launching October 15th, comprises five sporty models offering a more expensively styled look.

With a market dominated by upscale brands, the Swiss firm’s ever-inventive and creative designers have managed to keep some of the true Swatch look and feel around a new self-winding movement, putting assured chrono automatic performance and extraordinary style within easy reach of a more cost concerned customer.

There are five models within the collection and at the heart of the Swatch Chrono Automatic is the new self-winding ETA Caliber C01.211, a fifteen-jewel, 3Hz movement with a 46-hour power reserve. The thirty-minute and six-hour chrono counters are positioned at 12 and 6 o’clock, respectively, while the continuous seconds counter appears at 9 o’clock. A date aperture appears on all models at 3 o’clock.

As an avid collector of fine watches an accessories, i find myself genuinely adoring the look of this new leap in design, and have just become the first of many Swatch converts which this watch has the Chrono-matic movement to produce!