This Week in Watches: The Good, The Bad, And the Biver
TickTocking's Take on Watches and Wonders
It’s new release time for the watch world! After following the fairs for ~20 years now, one of the greatest takeaways is that the watch world keeps moving along. The market may be up or it may be down, but every year there are plenty of new watches to covet, or perhaps make fun of (both fun!).
We have not seen any of these watches in person, so we reserve the right to change our opinion, but we certainly have some thoughts.
Rolex is king.
The joke of Rolex calling a new bezel color an exciting release is always appropriate, but the reality can be understood like geopolitics. The US Federal Reserve can raise interest rates 25bps and tank international markets, while El Salvador can adopt Bitcoin as a national currency and barely get an editorial page in the WSJ. The vast majority of self-considered “watch guys” will never move beyond Rolex. Rolex is the 10,000 pound gorilla of the watch world, the superpower. This year their releases were actually interesting: both the watches themselves and what they say.
Rolex seems to relish their position and generally not care one bit about the outside world. They deliver Submariners and Daytonas from on high. This year feels different. From a Daytona with an exhibition back, to an all-titanium Yachtmaster, to colorful and playful dials, this is the first time we can remember feeling like Rolex is actually creating with an ear to the outside market and customers. Whether this is a good or bad thing is hard to say. We personally like the watches, but there is something sad watching the king bow to market trends. It is definitely something to keep an eye on in the future. Our top picks are the green dial steel Sky-Dweller and the ruby Daytona (send allocations here please).
Give us the finger
FP Journe released the production version of the FFC. The story was that Francis Ford Coppola (FFC) sketched out the idea and Francois Paul loved it enough to create a watch out of it, first released as an Only Watch in 2021. We were critical of the Only Watch version. While the design brings to mind a prostate exam and the “FFC” is the worst kind of Los Angeles name-dropping, against the backdrop of other releases we can’t help but enjoy the sheer audacity of this one. It makes no sense, doesn’t fit with the brand, is deliberately polarizing, and will be laughed at by any non-watch-person you show it to — and in that sense we have to love it. Not everything will be to our taste, and we like it that way. Weird stuff like this is what makes the watch world interesting.
Biver Flop
Jean-Claude Biver, industry giant, launched his new brand: Biver. As we self-censor many beaver puns, let us start by saying that we love minute repeaters. We fully support more repeaters in the industry, more innovation in repeaters, and use of repeaters in more casual watches. In fact, JCB made one of our favorite casual repeaters ever for Hublot, which we reviewed on YouTube. But this Biver stinks.
Almost the opposite of the above Journe, the only part of the watch that isn’t bland is its price tag. It’s hard to imagine what this adds to the world of horology, nor did they particularly care to tell us. Its celebrity pedigree garnered it the most press coverage of the year. Social media filled with posts of watch insiders at the launch party and praising the watch, but the pitch seemed to start and end with: JCB made a watch called Biver. Perhaps these will be cool when they float around from some dealer in Moscow without box or papers for 15 cents on the dollar. In all seriousness, we quite like older Blancpain, and are bigger fans of Hublot than most horological snobs, so we do hope for great things out of this brand. Unfortunately this Biver is damned on arrival.
De Bethune continues its classic revival
In our paid-subscribers post last week, we were confused by De Bethune’s reissuance of the original Digitale. Now that they follow it up with the DB Eight, it makes a bit more sense. They are clearly trying to bring back their original, classic case.
It is a beautiful watch. The classic case is a bit too classic for our taste, especially when we know the amazing cases that DB can produce, but the overall design is hard to knock. The numerals are beautiful, blued hands obviously spectacular, and the interesting details in the two minute tracks are quite welcome. We can’t help but be a bit disappointed with the back side, however. An in-house, manual wind chronograph is the perfect chance to wow us with mechanical beauty. The finishing and blockiness of the bridges leaves something to be desired in this respect. De Bethune has gone through a lot of ups and downs for a young brand. Most recently it has achieved a level of success we have long argued it deserved. This feels like the end of that chapter and the beginning of a new one. We can’t wait to see what’s next.
Lots of good watches
Overall, there were a lot of nice watches released. The new Lange Odysseus Chronograph, the stunning MB&F LM Perpetual version, and many others that we would be happy to wear and own. Overall, the industry has seemed to coalesce on a general understanding of how to make cool watches that people like. Retail prices are rising rapidly again, in typical Swiss fashion trying to capitalize on financial trends that have reversed before the watches hit showcases. High prices combined with good, but not great, watches can’t help but make everything feel a bit dull. It’s our hope that brands use the capital and goodwill earned over the last few high flying years to take risks in both product and business model. Our usual refrain is to not worry too much about new releases. Watches are meant to be worn for a long time, so eventually there’s no difference between a watch released in 2023, 2013, or 2003. Use that to your advantage to find the really great stuff, and not have to buy into the hype of the now.