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The official spec from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 1112).

As one might expect from German engineering, the quick-adjust clasp on Lange & Söhne's Odysseus bracelet is robust and well thought through.

Add up to 7mm of length at the push of a button or ratchet things back in for a snugger fit simply by squeezing the bracelet—all while on the wrist.

A pioneer in the use of both titanium and ceramics in its timepieces over the decades, IWC provides an overview of how it fuses the two to form Ceratanium in this photo-rich advertorial for Hypebeast.

Real in aesthetics, not quite (yet) in function. The official Dick Tracy watch, designed by Nick Mathis and produced by Longio Watch Co.

In a partnership between Phillips, LVMH-owned Zenith, and renowned independent watchmaker, Kari Voutilainen, a never-before-sold series of vintage Zenith 135-O movements (regulated by Charles Fleck and René Gygax in the mid-twentieth century for observatory trials) are being expertly finished, cased, and brought to market.

Featuring a stunted escape wheel to accommodate a larger balance wheel for improved rate stability, the movement architecture is akin to the Peseux 260, another vintage, observatory-grade chronometer, which Voutilainen based his own series of Observatoire timepieces on. However, unlike the Peseux 260, the Zenith 135 has an extra pinion in the gear train for a center-seconds hand, and can readily be set up to indicate either central seconds or subsidiary seconds. Whereas the Peseux 260 is architected specifically for a sub-seconds layout. That said, like Voutilainen's Observatoire timepieces and as with the Zenith 135-equipped timepieces that have preceded this set, Zenith has opted to go with sub-seconds.

It's also worth noting that, while Voutilainen converted the Peseux 260 to a free-sprung balance system for improved isochronism, he was very intentional about his team leaving the regulating components in the Zenith 135-O calibers they received exactly as they found them:

“The persons working on these movements were the best watchmakers at the time. They had the know-how to make things precise. That precision doesn’t disappear after 70 years. Our duty was not to touch that performance.”

An impressive build, with a Harry Winston Opus Series vibe and Richard Mille aesthetic, crafted entirely from Lego.

Nice, clean repair of a worn center wheel, using a steel sleeve, by James Harris.

With a movement developed by Stephen McDonnell, MB&F doubles down on the chronograph—in their first-ever chronograph—the Legacy Machine Sequential EVO, featuring a novel "Twinverter" mechanism to fluidly couple and decouple the two chronograph mechanisms.

The original Chronomètre Contemporain by Rexhep Rexhepi, which debuted in 2018, was a masterclass in movement layout and finishing. The follow-up from Rexhepi packs greater complexity under the hood, while retaining its visual identity on the dial side.

Surpassing the movement that preceded it in specs on paper, that increased complexity lends the new movement an altogether different visual appeal that falls a stride short of the supreme elegance of its forebearer. The supersized breadth of the anglage and oversized spokes on the balance wheel seem almost caricature-like when posed next to the original.

I would be interested to hear more from Rexhepi himself about the thinking that went into bifurcating power delivery and, in particular, the changes to the balance wheel. In addition to the unusually large spokes, the modifications to the variable-inertia weights on the balance render it moderately more tedious to make precise timing adjustments in such tight quarters. Robin Nooy, over at Monochrome, has reported that the balance screws are responsible for the 60% increase in inertia at the balance wheel. However, it is clearly the increased girth of those spokes that account for the majority of that increase. Ideally, though, you want to move as much of that weight as possible to the outer rim, or felloe, of the balance wheel to optimize rate stability. Time will tell if this new balance design has staying power or whether it will mirror the trajectory of Voutilainen's Carbontime Fused Quartz Balance in the Rexhepi timeline.

At the end of the day, the execution of the finishing remains world class and it retains a free-sprung balance, so it's still got it where it counts.

Miniature, 80/20-style aluminum extrusions.

Traditional in looks with nouveau execution. The stamped dial of the new Louis Erard Regulateur, featuring design direction from William Massena, serves up a pleasing aesthetic with typography that almost seems to float above the dial.

The broad form of the 'A' in Massena's logotype, well-suited to watch dials and informed by vintage watch typography, stands in stark contrast to the slimmer, more modern 'A' in Louis-Erard's logotype, which is derived from type designed for signage and screens.

One of Vacheron Constantin's engravers putting the finishing touches on the wings of Nike for their Métiers d’Art 'Tribute to Great Civilisations' reference 7620A/000G-B928.

Rounding the stairs to encounter this graceful remnant from the Island of Samothrace, carved from white marble, stands out as one of the absolute highlights of the Louvre for me.

In 1924, British mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine set out to climb to the top of Mount Everest, nearly 30 years before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's successful ascent in 1953. Mark Synnott, author of The Third Pole, posits that photographic evidence of Mallory and Irvine's summit of Mount Everest may still exist from Irvine’s Vest Pocket Kodak camera.

I've long wondered whether Mallory and Irvine managed to make it to the peak—without supplemental oxygen, no less. Regardless of whether or not evidence ever surfaces that they did, Hillary and Norgay will forever remain the first to do it and live to tell the tale.