Zach Kazan

Since I picked up the Zeitwinkel 273° Saphir Fumé in the fall of last year, I’ve been meaning to write something about it. It’s an incredible watch, probably the best I’ve owned, and I feel lucky to have it. That’s a strange thing to say, I know. I’m sure Zeitwinkel would happily sell this watch to anyone who was willing to provide the agreed upon amount of money – luck doesn’t really have that much to do with it. But there are things about this watch that are special and set it apart from other watchers I’ve owned that make having it in my watch box and on my wrist a unique pleasure.

From the moment Oris announced their ProPilot X “Kermit” watch fans have been speculating about which muppet would be next to get the Oris treatment. Not that we didn’t love seeing Kermit on the dial (once a month, on the first of the month) but for many elder-millennials and Gen-X watch collectors, the thought of having an entire collection of Muppet watches was, and remains, pretty tantalizing. Now, just about two years after Kermit made his Oris debut, we get the follow up: the ProPilot X Miss Piggy Edition.

It’s certainly no surprise that our inboxes here at Worn & Wound continue to be inundated with new releases heralding the year of the snake. The first weeks of January are traditionally a slow period for new watch releases in every category except

Vacheron Constantin is the world’s oldest watch brand in continuous operation, and they celebrate a big anniversary this year: 270 years. That’s an incredibly long time for a company to exist, and simply by virtue of its age, Vacheron has survived virtually every kind of calamity that can befall the human beings who, at the end of the day, are responsible for keeping the thing going. Wars, disease, more wars, Instagram hype – Vacheron has seen it all. It’s certainly a milestone worth celebrating, and as brands tend to do when these big numbers crop up, they’re doing it with a watch (probably a bunch of watches, to be fair – it’s only January). In any case, to begin their big anniversary year, Vacheron Constantin has introduced a new version of their 222 in steel, a watch that has been anticipated and speculated about since its most immediate predecessor was introduced just shy of three years ago.

It probably goes without saying that here at Worn & Wound we think watch collecting is a rewarding hobby that if approached in the right way can bring you a lot of happiness over the course of many years. And unlike, say, tennis, there’s very little risk of injury. And unlike a pursuit like car collecting, you won’t need to buy a separate parcel of real estate to store your collection, unless you happen to be John Mayer (allegedly). And in our opinion it’s an easy hobby to recommend because you can get deep into it without spending a fortune, and we also happen to know there’s a great community of like-minded enthusiasts out there who can provide support, advice, and general expertise along the way. But it’s not all sunshine and daisies. Oh no, not at all. Eventually, the time will come when you need to send a watch in for service, and this is the point where enthusiasts are either made or perhaps run away from watches, never to return.

Something we’ve learned about the Speedmaster over the years is that it can be, quite literally, anything. The Speedy is effectively a brand unto itself, with watches in the collection that strike just about every note possible in watchmaking. There are traditional vintage inspired Speedmasters, modern and tactical Speedmasters, Speedmasters with a jewelry focus,

Last week, Peter Speake returned to the independent watchmaking scene when he unveiled the first pieces from his new brand, PS Horology. Peter is something of a legendary figure in the indie watchmaking world. He is the co-founder of Speake-Marin, which launched in 2002 after Peter spent a period of time working as a watchmaker for Renaud & Papi in Le Locle, Switzerland. Speake-Marin is perhaps best known for the Piccadilly case design, named for the London district where Peter spent the early part of his career restoring vintage watches. The Piccadilly case, I’ve always felt, is something of an acquired taste. I’ve come to really love it, and see it as a symbol of an earlier era of independent watchmaking when these artisanal, handcrafted watches made in very small batches were not at the front of anyone’s mind. Times, of course, have changed for the better, and indies are currently having the quite the moment, but it’s worth remembering that a line can be drawn from any of the buzzy new indie watchmakers to surface in the last few years all the way back to Peter and his early 2000s contemporaries. To put it plainly, it’s great that he’s back.

This week, at their annual press event in Vail, CO, Oris unveiled the latest edition of the Divers Sixty-Five, the Divers Sixty-Five 60th Anniversary Edition. While some have met the news of yet another trip to the Divers Sixty Five well with some confusion or bemusement considering the big launch of its natural successor, the

I’m long on the record as being an unabashed fan of the Zenith Defy. If you search this website or listen to old podcasts, you’ll find plenty of instances of me saying that the Defy is my all time favorite line of sports watches, period. For as long as the Defy has existed, it’s been a showcase for Zenith at their most adventurous, both technically and aesthetically, and a reflection of the larger watch landscape at the current moment, whatever that happens to be. I’ve often framed my discussions of the Defy around wishing for a resurgence of the collection, which through the years has too often been ignored in favor of other objectively more popular Zenith collections, but with the release of the new Defy Skyline Chronograph Skeleton, it occurs to me that we really do, finally, have a fully fleshed out Defy collection, and Zenith is doing anything but ignoring it.

While I haven’t been doing “this” as long as some who have been in the watch media trenches since a time when you could reliably get a discount on a brand new Rolex at an authorized dealer, I’ve been doing it long enough to get a sense of the rhythms of a new release season. We are, as of yesterday, in the thick of it. LVMH Watch Week is the unofficial (but also kind of official) kick off of a new year in novelties from big luxury group brands, and within the confines of the LVMH experience there’s one tradition that stands out to me that’s become something I look forward to and get genuinely excited about: seeing what kind of crazy sapphire or SAXEM cased watch Hublot has come up with. Pretty reliably, on a year to year basis, Hublot shows us a wild and colorful and extremely expensive watch in an exotic, glass-adjacent material. This year, like clockwork, they’re back with the Big Bang Tourbillon Automatic Green SAXEM, a watch whose name is nearly doing my job for me.