This Week in Watches: May 23, 2020 — Essential Edition
Welcome back to This Week in Watches for May 23, 2020: the essential edition. Many of our readers either have a long weekend due to Memorial Day or are coming off of a bridge day from last week. We won’t make you think too hard during your time off with these three-handers.
Timex Milano XL
If we talk essential, three-hands, a bracelet, a date function, 50 meters of water resistance and quartz define our needs. But why not throw in a little retro style to create an inexpensive looker? Well, that’s precisely what Timex has done with its new Milano XL collection. The nice thing is that “XL” only means 38mm on this 1970s-inspired c-cased watch. It’s available in three different colors which include stainless with silver dial, black-coated with black dial and gold-coated with gold dial. I’m a fan of the stainless piece and at €119, it looks like another easy win for the resurgent Timex brand. The watches are available in the USA and in Europe. Head to the Timex site for more.
Bamford x Badgerworks TAG Heuer Carrera Coffee Watch
One essential for me each and every morning is coffee. As Bamford tells us, that’s the same for 2 billion people each day who have a cup of joe. Well, now, 20 people can choose to have some coffee on their watch dial. Bamford has teamed up with Black Badger (creator of funky lumed dials normally) to produce 20 pieces of the TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 5 with a “Tropical Coffee” dial. Yes, the coffee is made fo dial and comes from spent grounds via Cafe Da Matteo in Gothenburg, Sweden. The grounds are formed into a dial and hand finished to create the look you see above. The 41mm stainless Carrera has a titanium case coating and runs the Sellita SW-220-1 inside. At £5,500 this makes Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee look cheap. In my opinion, the idea is neat. Color-wise, I’m not so sure… The watches are available on the Bamford website.
Frederique Constant Vintage Rally Healey Automatics
I happen to have a friend who owns a vintage Austin Healey and his wife bought him a Frederique Constant chronograph celebrating the car. Let’s see if he considers either of today’s pieces essential to his collection. Interestingly, there are two limited edition (2,888 pieces of each) watches in this latest release and both are three-handers. Firstly, there’s rose-gold plated example with silver and brown dial for €1,750. Second, there’s a British Racing Green variant with stainless case for €1,450. Both come in at a 40mm and contain the Sellita SW200-1 automatic. A miniature replica of a famous Austin Healey racer comes in the package. For more information, head to the official Frederique Constant site.
DETOMASO Viaggio Automatic Green wins Red Dot Award
Our final topic comes to us from DETOMASO, a maker of inexpensive value-laden watches. Their Viaggio Automatic in green has just been awarded a prestigious Red Dot Award for Good Design. Coincidentally, we mentioned Laco as an award winner last week with its Frankfurt GMT. The Viaggio is a €349, 42mm stainless watch with a Seiko automatic. The matte dial is uncomfortably similar to the NOMOS Autobahn series of watches with its concave shape. It looks fine and it’s hard to argue about the pricing, but awarding a budget-priced imitation makes me wonder about the Red Dot group. Still, congrats to DETOMASO and feel free to head here for more information.
Folks, that’s everything for This Week in Watches. Enjoy your weekend!
