Watches & Wonders, the world’s largest luxury timepiece event, kicked off its 2023 exhibition today in Geneva. The event, formerly known as the International Salon de la Haute Horlogerie, showcased new watches from nearly 50 brands this year, from industry giants to trendsetting boutiques and independent labels. As one might expect, the most anticipated new releases come from big Swiss brand Rolex and Rolex-owned sports luxury specialist Tudor. Here is a report of the year’s most fascinating new releases from Tudor from the Palexpo showroom in Geneva.
Tudor Black Bay Burgundy
Background: Since its launch in 2012, the Black Bay has become the undisputed flagship of the modern Tudor fleet. Its appeal to collectors stems from its elegantly fused hodgepodge of elements from several different versions of its popular dive watch, the Oyster Prince Submariner. These include the so-called “snowflake” hour hand, taken from Submariner Ref. 7016 from 1969. (The oddly shaped hour hand is an obvious concession to legibility: one of the main customers of the Tudor Submariner was the French Navy, whose divers found two distinct hands useful for reading time underwater.) Big screw 1958 The ‘Big Crown’ model introduced a downward-facing crown with a Tudor rose engraved on it. The geometric hour markers – dots and rectangles, with a main inverted triangle at 12 o’clock – are derived from the Tudor Submariners that were on the market in the 60s and 70s, as is the clever domed shape of the dial and sapphire crystal. The heart of the Black Bay collection, derived directly from the original Heritage model, measures 41mm with a predominantly steel case and anodized aluminum bezel insert for the diving scale. Today, these Black Bay 41mm models are powered by the Tudor caliber MT5602, an in-house movement that made its debut in the now-defunct North Flag watch. It has a 70-hour power reserve, a silicon hairspring held in place by traversing bridges, and COSC-certified timekeeping accuracy.
What’s new: The new Black Bay with a burgundy bezel is reminiscent of the trendsetting model of 2012, with a classic 41mm case size and a burgundy unidirectional diver’s bezel. It is worth mentioning that the latest Black Bay is equipped with the Tudor movement MT5602-U self-winding movement, which not only has the COSC Observatory certificate that all Tudor movements have, but also has the Master Chronometer certificate from the Swiss Metrology Institute METAS. It is not only accuracy that can be measured, but also other factors such as resistance to magnetic fields. Apart from Omega, which set up the Master Chronometer test for its own watches in 2015, Tudor is the only watch brand to receive this certification. Other notable tweaks to its predecessor include the new,
Tudor Black Bay GMT
Background: The Tudor Black Bay GMT takes the classic design of the Rolex GMT-Master and gives it a very contemporary twist, a defining feature of 21st century Tudor. While the Black Bay GMT clearly borrows aesthetically from Rolex’s GMT-Master, it also fits perfectly with the Black Bay design language, with a bezel featuring a two-tone 24-hour ring on which the wearer can read a second time zone, thanks to GMT hand on the dial. The famous bright red and blue “Pepsi” bezel of the original Rolex GMT-Master has been slightly modified here for a more subdued combination of indigo and burgundy. Last year, Tudor wowed the audience in Geneva with a steel gold version.
New: The latest version of the Black Bay GMT features an opal white dial with a galvanic finish that gives it a grainy silver finish. The outlines of the dial hour markers have been darkened to make them more prominent. The 41mm steel case houses the Tudor-manufactured MT5652 movement, which has an anti-magnetic silicon hairspring and a “weekend-proof” (according to Tudor) 70-hour power reserve. Introduced in 2018 in the original Black Bay GMT, this self-winding movement is durable and precise, with a variable inertia balance held by a traveling bridge fixed at two points. Like all Tudor in-house movements, it has chronometer certification from the Swiss testing agency COSC, although Tudor proudly reminds us that its own in-house precision standards are even stricter than COSC’s: deviations of between -2 and +4 seconds per day interval instead of the -4 and +6 seconds allowed by the authentication.
Tudor Black Bay 54
Background: In 2018, in response to growing consumer demand for more modest case sizes and more authentic era-style timepieces, Tudor launched the Black Bay Fifty-Eight, named after the year 1958 in which Tudor released the Oyster Prince Submariner Ref. 7924, Black Bay’s most obvious forerunner. That watch matched the 39mm case diameter of that vintage model, which became the default case size for Oyster Prince shortly after the first model was 37mm.
Update: You see how this is going, right? Tudor has now revived the 37mm size of the original 1954 Oyster Prince (Ref. 7922) with a new – you guessed it – Black Bay 54. Measuring just 11.24mm thick in stainless steel and topped with a unidirectional bezel without a hash mark – a nod to early SCUBA diving and early diver’s watches – Tudor calls it “the brand’s first diver’s watch in its purest form. A modern expression” 200m water resistant case houses an automatic Tudor caliber MT5400 with COSC chronometer certification and a 70-hour power reserve. Both watches – either on riveted bracelet or rubber strap – feature ‘T-Fit’ adjustment mechanism.
Black Bay 31/36/39/41
Background: Known for its smooth, fixed bezel – which replaced the functional rotating diver’s bezel on the “classic” Black Bay watch – a smaller series extension of the Black Bay core line, measuring 41mm, 39mm , 36mm, 32mm, and 31mm case sizes—stretching the Black Bay out of its usual setting as a diver’s fashion tool watch and placing it firmly in the “everyday” sports watch category. Tudor has introduced a plethora of colorways in this more dressy range extension, doing justice to the various sizes, so it is suitable for both men’s and women’s wearers.
NEW: Four sizes of steel case, all connected to a five-link steel bracelet, debut at Watches & Wonders 2023, each in one of three vibrant new dial colors: blue, Anthracite and champagne. Some are also available in diamond-encrusted styles. Showcasing what Tudor has achieved since re-entering the US market in 2013, all of these watches now feature in-house automatic Tudor movements, all COSC certified and have anti-magnetic silicon balance springs: Caliber MT5201 in 31mm watches, MT5400 in 36mm, MT5602 in 39mm and 41mm MT5601. replica watches luxury
royal tudors
Background: Neither is the Black Bay of the Tudor factory these days. Tudor founder Hans Wilsdorf launched the watch that inspired the Tudor Royal in 1926 – the Oyster Prince Submariner that inspired the Black Bay. ) decades earlier. Royal, which first used the name in 1950, is a dressier collection than Black Bay, while still being fairly “sporty chic” in design, with notched or diamond-set bezels and the ever-popular integrated bracelet.
New: Two new sunburst-patterned dials debut on this year’s Royal models, and like previous smooth-bezel Black Bays, are available in a variety of case sizes: 28mm, 34mm, 38mm and 41mm – one orange-red and another chocolate-brown. Also debuting are models with mother-of-pearl dials and hour markers set with diamonds or Roman numerals; a total of 13 new styles are available. Depending on the model, the five-link integrated bracelet is either all steel or steel and gold, and features the T-Fit easy adjustment system. cheap swiss watches