WORDS
Richard Holt
Name recognition is important in any business, but in the watch industry it is off the scale. A handful of brands are so embedded within the culture that almost everyone knows them. At the other end are names that might be known by obsessives and a few dedicated fans.
Until a few years ago, Tudor was known primarily to insiders, so the level of the recent transformation is unprecedented, and the watch that propelled Tudor into the public eye was the retro-styled Black Bay, which has been updated with colours and a new movement that mark a milestone in the watch’s development.
In 2012 Tudor brought out a watch then called the Heritage Black Bay, an interpretation of a line of diving watches launched by Tudor in the 1950s. It hit just as the market for vintage watches in general and vintage diving watches in particular was getting hot. And the watch really brought the heat for Tudor, transforming it from Rolex’s younger sister into a talked-about brand. In the decade since, the range has been expanded to include chronographs, GMTs and steel-and-gold versions, with Black Bays to suit all tastes. The most recently launched versions have names corresponding to four different case sizes, from a slender 31mm to a not over-large 41mm.
When the modern Black Bay was launched, it was fitted with an automatic movement from ETA. As Tudor’s stock rose, it stated an intention to move towards making its own movements. The first step was the North Flag in 2015, and since then in-house movements have been rolled out across different parts of the range. This year it was announced that every watch in the Black Bay range now comes with an in-house movement. Each has a non-magnetic silicon hairspring in a movement certified as a chronometer by the Swiss institute COSC. Power reserve in the three larger watches is a hefty 70 hours, while even the smallest is a very respectable 50 hours.
The new range offers a choice of three sunray dials: anthracite, blue, and champagne. They all have the minute track in a contrasting colour, and they all come on a five-link stainless-steel bracelet fitted with Tudor’s proprietary “T-fit” rapid-adjustment system, allowing on-the-fly tweaks of up to 8mm. Each has the option of a diamond setting, with eight stones marking the hours in between 12, 3, 6 and 9. The “snowflake” hour hand is a characteristic feature, introduced in the late ’60s and a great source of affection among Tudor collectors.
If the reaction to this year’s watches is anything to go by, the Tudor revolution is showing no signs of slowing down.
From £3,110; tudorwatch.com