Three outstanding watches from the bronze trend

The opening scene in gangster movie Sexy Beast (2000) has been plaguing my thoughts recently. In it, you see a corpulent Ray Winstone sunning himself in the baking heat of the “Costa del Crime”, in southern Spain, in an attempt to bronze his doggedly pink skin.

For some reason, that got me thinking about tanning, or rather fake tans, and then from there my mind wandered to the decidedly orange-hued president in the White House and his inability to evenly cover the areas around his eyes. And from there, after a nap and a sandwich, I got to thinking about the trend in bronze watches.

I didn’t say there was method to my madness but, hey, that’s how my noggin is wired.

So yes, bronze watches is a thing and has been for, oh, about a year now. Why has this happened? Well, the fad for more out­landish materials (think carbon fibre, ceramic) meant we were always on the lookout for the next one, so watch companies just circled back to bronze, which was quite popular in the era of muskets and pirates. Today’s trend owes more to guys wanting vintage-looking watches with a patina and a colour that sticks out than a yearn­ing for cholera-ridden Napoleonic Europe.

Now I’m going to mention two watches I’ve written about before, not because I’m lazy or flirt dangerously with ideas of self-plagiarism (Ahoy, Jonah Lehrer!), but because I’m trying to illustrate the trend for bronze watches with some of the stand­outs from the past 18 months. Before I dive into the top three, I want to give honourable mentions to the Panerai Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Auto­matic Bronzo (a steam­punk’s dream; US$14,400), the Oris Carl Brashear Limited Edition (at HK$21,300, a bargain) and the Squale Professional Master Bronze (a subtle gem; US$3,000) – all of these bronze watches would have taken the gold, but will have to settle for silver, or something.

The watch that has perhaps driven this trend – if you believe watch blogs and Instagram that is – is the Tudor Heritage Black Bay Bronze. The Black Bay Bronze dive watch took an already wildly successful collection and added a sense of fun with the bronze iteration, while playing up the maritime features and Tudor’s own heritage. First and foremost, the looks – they are just great. Modern, playful and different, this Tudor doesn’t really conform. Sized at 43mm with a uni­directional bezel and a depth range of 200 metres, this is a watch designed to be used. Features are kept simple – it’s a dive watch, after all – and the move­ment is an in-house MT5601. Probably the best thing about this piece is the price, a snip at HK$28,500.