The watches that deserved to win at the ‘Oscars’

If you follow the movie business, you will know that we are well into awards season, even though the Oscars are not until March (my money is on Dunkirk to clean up, for what it’s worth).

In the watch game, the “Oscars”, or the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG), took place on November 8 in a glittering ceremony in Switzerland. Was I there? Well, no, my invite must have got lost in the mail and they probably don’t use email and, well, I didn’t really want to go actually. Quite. Anyway, if you are interested to know what won and in which category, go check out the GPHG website.

As this is my column, and I’ll cry if I want to, I’ve decided to pick my winners from the GPHG shortlist. The “real winners”, if you will. Actually, this whole GPHG set-up was so I could talk about one of my favourite watches of the year, the Seiko First Diver’s Re-creation Limited Edition, which was in the Petite Aiguille category.

People who know me will know I’ve got a thing for Japanese brand Seiko, not only because it makes excellent watches but also because I hate/love the way it does business. Briefly, Seiko rarely cares about the market outside Japan, even though among international watch nerds it is highly regarded, which, if you are trying to buy one, is equal parts admirable and frustrating. What’s the Japanese word for harrumph?

The First Diver’s Re-creation, as the name suggests, is a literal re-creation of Seiko’s first dive watch (bravo, Seiko naming department!), from 1965, but its more technical name is the Prospex Diver SLA017. What’s to love about this watch? Well, both on the outside and the inside, it is a beauty. When it comes to design, most “retro” watches take things from the past but often betray a modern sensi­bility (size is usually the thing that changes), but this piece is an almost exact replica of the 1965 watch. The steel case is 40mm and, as per dive watch standards, it has a rotating bezel and fairly decent 200 metres of water resistance. One of Seiko’s great strengths is its ability to price its first-class watches at reason­able prices, but this SLA017 is a hefty US$3,400. Before you look else­where, though, inside is an 8L35 move­ment, something that is found in Grand Seiko fine watches, and, lest we forget, it’s limited to 2,000 pieces.