Issue 150: Ask Me Anything
The future of James Bond watches; Why brands stick with slow-selling models; What's wrong with the PRX; Grail chronographs; Positive surprises at W&W and much more...
Hello and welcome back to The Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that has just enjoyed a week off. If anything earth-shattering has taken place this week, you’ll have to wait another seven days for my thoughts on it. What you have instead is my answers to another fantastic set of questions that you’ve submitted. I love doing the AMA and it continues to be one of my favourite things about The Fourth Wheel. This week we get into it on subjects as varied as what watch the next James Bond could wear, why brands persist in making models they know aren’t that popular, whether Tissot’s PRX deserves its reputation, what I liked best at W&W that I wasn’t expecting to see, what indie brands I’m keen on, and what’s going on with the Furlan Marri perpetual calendar that seems too good to be true. Enjoy!
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Here’s a little taste of what you might have missed recently:
Ask Me Anything
I was asked one question that deserves its own newsletter - or at least, more space than I can give it this week. Spencer Hart asked me “If you were starting your own watch brand, what would it, and what would your debut watch, look like?” and I spent so long thinking about it that I decided it needs more work. I mean, I’m not actually going to launch my own brand, but I’m taking this seriously…so expect that in the next few weeks.
What’s your current grail watch? Hegid Watches
I am terrible at favourites, let alone grails. Every day at Watches & Wonders someone would ask me what I’d liked most that day and I always struggled for an answer. I have been saying for a long time that money no object, I would love one of the split-seconds chronographs that Atelier de Chronometrie produces; they’re beautiful, classic, bespoke and suitably niche.
Really high-end chronographs are my weakness so if I start listing a few, we will be here for a while… Patek Philippe 5470P, an Odysseus Chronograph, a Greubel Forsey Mechanical Nano EWT, a Journe Centigraphe, a De Bethune Maxichrono, the Petermann Bedat 2941, the Gronegraaf… take your pick.
Did Tissot win Watches & Wonders with their “Watching & Wondering” post? city_escapement on Instagram
No.
Okay, okay, it was pretty funny. Corporate humour on social media is of course its own special type of lame1 but within that, yeah it was an easy win.
This question has triggered something in me, however. There’s not much wrong with the Tissot PRX (althought for some reason despite the 7,398 varieties there still isn’t one I think is just perfect, and if you believe what you hear on TikTok they just throw away the movements when they service them), but there is something wrong with PRX fans on the internet.
I made a reel about the Rolex Land-Dweller2 at W&W and one comment came up over and over again: ‘PRX’. You see it everywhere you go, any time a Zenith Defy, or a Laureato, or a Vacheron 222 gets a mention. “Just get a PRX”. “Expensive PRX”. “PRX did it better” and so on ad infinitum.
Let’s get it straight: Tissot was pretty late to the integrated bracelet trend in the 1970s (today’s watch is based on a model from 1978) and it was pretty late to the revival craze too. The PRX (modern) is brilliantly successful but it is also entirely unoriginal. It totally works but it would be insane if it didn’t; it’s a watch designed by Venn diagram, created to provide something of the Laureato or Overseas to those with far smaller budgets. This really is my equivalent of the famous scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep explains why the blue sweater is not just blue. Yes, there are a lot of watches that look like the Tissot PRX. None of them have copied the Tissot PRX (not specifically, anyway - there are watches like the Christopher Ward The Twelve which evoke the entire genre) and there is absolutely no reason to give it the kind of icon status that a lot of people on social media seem to think it deserves. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine watch and Tissot has done some good things with it. I just find it maddening that it has wormed its way into the popular horological consciousness as some kind of proto-sports-luxe design to which other brands, even much more prestigious ones, owe a debt.
I suppose, if I’m honest, this is testament to its incredible popularity, so for Tissot, this is nothing but good news. If you’ve made something so good that people even think Rolex is ripping you off, well fair play. A cheeky little social media stunt is the least you deserve.
Biggest positive surprise from W&W? I really liked the new Hermes watches particularly Le Temps Suspendu which I wasn’t expecting. (frankly they weren’t even on my radar!) - Jonathan Hughes
I was surprised how much I liked the Eberhard Contograf; it’s a brand we don’t talk about much in the UK but it’s a good size and well proportioned. I would say Bremont’s perpetual calendar - both a surprise that it happened and a pleasant surprise that I liked it as much as I did.
The Zenith G.F.J, hardly surprising to you now as last week I said it was my watch of the whole fair, was a very pleasant surprise. As a brand as a whole, I would say Jaeger-LeCoultre, because on hearing that it was yet again ‘the year of the Reverso’ one’s eyes could easily begin to reverso in their sockets. But what they showed was pretty special from the minute repeater right down to time-only monoface pieces. The hand-painted models in particular are fantastic.
I have heard on various podcasts and from industry insiders about watch companies “dumping” undesirable models on them as a condition of getting the desirables from the same brand or conglomerate. My question is that if the watch companies know certain models or lines are unloved and have to be forced on their ADs, why not either eliminate them or make a whole lot less? Daniel
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