The good, the great and the wacky: three of Baselworld 2019’s best watches
Timepieces from Tag Heuer, Rolex and De Bethune stood out from the crowd at the recent edition of the watch and jewellery show
By the time this goes to print, Baselworld 2019 will have closed its doors on another edition. I have been trying to sift through the hundreds of new releases to separate the horological wheat from the chaff. Of course, the onus is on me to pick the best watches and write about them, and I take this gig seriously (stop sniggering!). To wit, I give you the good, the great and the wacky that came out on day one of Baselworld.
Tag Heuer’s Autavia Isograph is firmly in the first bracket as it looks good and has a little something new, with the use of carbon composite parts in the Calibre 5 movement (the “isograph” in the name designates watches with this movement). The watch builds on the heritage of the Autavia timepieces of the 1960s, when Heuer was an independent company. The smoky dial and raised curviness of the bezel are stand-outs, and Tag Heuer, a little belatedly perhaps, has jumped on the bronze bandwagon and is offering the 42mm case in that material as well as steel (above). Prices for the Autavia Isograph start at 3,400 Swiss francs (steel; US$2,415) rising to 4,200 Swiss francs (bronze).
Now we come to the great, and the Yacht-Master 42 by Rolex, whose watches tend to be, for want of a better word, dull, despite being technically first-rate. The Yacht-Master has graduated from meh to a real head-turner and the key reasons are the upsizing to 42mm from 40mm, the black dial and the use of white gold for the case.
Previous Yacht-Masters conjure up images of a gaudy yellow-gold-and-white-dial watch worn by passionless middle managers – this, on the other hand, is a stunner. Kudos to Rolex’s design team for leaning into the black colour scheme, with the dial and rubber offset perfectly by the ceramic bezel. The watch features a calibre 3235 movement with 70 hours of power reserve and Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) certification. Rolex regulars, such as the cyclops eye over the date window and the Oyster case are here, too. The Yacht-Master 42 is priced at 26,500 Swiss francs.
