Should 2023 Be Forgot?
A few last minutes thoughts on a wild year in watches — and some of the wildest watches of the year.
As we all prepare to turn the pages on our calendars and move on from 2023, it’s natural to start looking back and taking stock of the last twelve months. And I know what you’re saying: “Isn’t using the New Year as a starting/end point kind of cliché? Isn’t it a bit overdone?”
Well, the answer to that is yes. Clearly, yes — I am far from the only one contemplating some sort of roundup in late December and I hardly claim originality on this front, but bear with me. And yes, that January 1st is the start of the new year can feel sort of arbitrary. But given that we all seem to have accepted January 1st as our common delineator (at least in Western countries), we might as well do this now.
Increasingly, I find myself feeling like a year isn’t really that much time. I mean, a year certainly feels shorter than it did when I was a kid. I certainly never had the feeling that weeks and months were vanishing in the blink of an eye when I was sitting in (arbitrarily choosing a very specific year and teacher that only a few friends and family will know about) my third-grade homeroom with our teacher Caroline getting mad at me.
But despite how quick a year can feel, a lot can change in that short amount of time. After all, if Jonathan Larson has beat any message into our collective consciousness over the last few decades, it’s just how many hours there really are in a year.
Getting back to the point at hand though, it’s the end of the year, and that means, for better or worse it’s time to look back. And because I’m me, that means it’s time to look back at a year in watches.
So if you’ll indulge me, the following are a smattering of thoughts about both my 2023 as a watch enthusiast (and vaguely collector) and ostensible professional in the watch space — everything from some of my favorites I never had the chance to write about to the watch I undoubtedly wore the most in 2023.
The Most Surprising Watch of 2023 — The Arcanaut ARC II Fordite
Over the last 18 months or so, I have had the enormous privilege of going hands-on with a truly insane number of watches. When I did the math a few weeks ago, I was able to — conservatively — peg the number at somewhere around 3500 individual watches. I recognize that that seems like an insane number, and I’m more than happy to run you through my logic but believe me when I say it’s gotta be pretty close.
These watches have ranged from really fun Timex Ironman collaborations and fantastic micro-brand experiments to pocket watches made by history’s ultimate master watchmaker and multi-million dollar complications from the top independent brands on the market today. This wide range of hands-on experience with the world’s best watches at every level and price range has had a side effect — it is really hard to surprise me.
What I mean to say by this isn’t that some fantastical new complication or wild case shape won’t impress me. Rather, what I mean by this is if you show me a press release, give me the specs of a watch, let me see some good live images, I can come up with a fairly good sense of how the watch will wear on my wrist and what I’ll generally think ages before I get to see one.
Now, I fully acknowledge that I am usually a little off, but typically only by a few percentage points one way or the other. So when Rolex releases a watch like the full yellow gold GMT-Master, I can piece together a preliminary opinion because stashed in my mental filing cabinet, I know how good the current GMT-Master II is, and I know how it feels to wear a modern gold Rolex sports model.
So why am I telling you all of this in a section named after a watch I have yet to mention? Because I want to make it clear that there are very few watches I have encountered recently that have completely and totally taken me by surprise. Very few watches that, the moment I saw them in person, elicited a polar opposite reaction to my expectation. And the most notable watch to have drawn out this response in 2023 was the Arcanaut ARC II Fordite.
I first took notice of the ARC II Fordite in a real way when a friend of mine, who also works in the industry, picked one up a few months ago. This is a guy who, admittedly, does not shy away from the weird and wonderful in his taste but, even with that context, the ARC II felt like a stretch.
I mean, you can barely read the time on these things. The watch is broad across the wrist, you can’t hand wind it and, though not bad in some dramatic way, the timekeeping is also nothing to write home about. It also costs just under $4000, so these are all things that should matter.
But they really don’t. Not one bit. The ARC II Fordite is awesome, full stop. I love this watch, and while the quirks are something to consider, in my experience, they have only served to make the watch feel more special. It didn’t take long for me to realize that once I got the ARC II on my wrist a few months ago.
Arcanaut is a brand that gets the details right. In online images, the Arcanaut seems like a relatively straightforward piece with a simple case shape, integrated rubber strap, and a wide-open dial, but that expressed simplicity belies a shocking complexity.
In hand, the case shape is surprisingly refined; tucking in towards the caseback and curving around the wrist while replete with recesses and varied finishing. The strap is amazingly comfortable and, despite its broad stance, is built to accommodate a wide variety of wrist sizes (though I probably wouldn’t recommend this for members of the IBWC). Even changing the strap is a satisfying experience, especially thanks to the use of the included strap change tool.
And while all these details stood out, the ARC II Fordite still manages to be more than the sum of its parts and is undoubtedly my surprise of the year. If you’re even remotely interested in the ARC II Fordite, you should head over to Arcanaut’s site. The last batch of Fordite dialed ARC IIs are listed now, and there are some real gems among them.
Beyond the Fordite options, Arcanaut has continued to play around with executions of the ARC II, releasing a handful of new varieties and flavors over the last few months. From wild Experimental pieces to the ARC II Havender (which uses a dial made from Scandinavian mussel shells) Arcanaut is on a roll and they don’t seem poised to fall off any time soon.
Comeback Brand of the Year — TAG Heuer
It is far from a stretch to say that in recent years (decades) TAG Heuer has increasingly been a name uttered with derision among watch enthusiasts. Far from the highs of the Heuer era, TAG has become a brand that enthusiasts have warned new collectors away from and mocked as a maker of so-called “mall watches.”
And you know what, critics of TAG Heuer have been right. The brand has been in a bad way for a very long time. In the 21st century, TAG Heuer has been a brand devoid of personality and identity, content to produce shiny and generic watches sold at a price just low enough that they could be justified as an impulse purchase at duty-free shops by customers flying back from cruises.
But if you think of TAG Heuer that way in 2023, you’re just not paying attention. Sure, TAG Heuer still sells a lot of watches that are plenty easy to ignore — a Mario watch here, a Link or two there, and a Formula 1 or smartwatch to round out a kiosk are all easy enough to mock — but if you look a bit beyond, it’s clear that TAG Heuer still knows a thing or two about making watches.
I started to pay attention to TAG Heuer again last year with the release of the Aquaracer 200. These were based on the bigger Aquaracer 300 aesthetic introduced the year before but despite their aesthetic similarities, the Aquaracer 200s were different from the 43mm behemoths that came in 2021. These were thin dive watches in quartz or automatic with a real personality. And there was a solar-powered option. I cannot tell you how close I came to pulling the trigger.
That said, one model does not a brand make, and 2022 came and went without much else to draw my eye. So we moved on to 2023, which was always going to be a big year for TAG. Watch brands love an anniversary, and that goes doubly for TAG, so the 60th anniversary of the Carrera was inevitably going to be an event. We didn’t have to wait long for the festivities to kick off. LVMH Watch Week kicked off January 10 and with that TAG Heuer set the tone for the year.
From the moment I saw the 40mm Aquaracer Solargraph in titanium, I knew this was going to be the year I started paying attention to TAG Heuer. TAG released some other cool watches that day (like a really good 60th anniversary Panda Carrera and a new Monza Flyback Chronograph in a carbon case), but the watch that has come to define the year for the brand came a few months later with the release of the all-new 39mm “Glassbox” Carrera.
Let me just start by saying that redesigning the Carrera must be a daunting task. Few earthbound watches not made by Rolex or Patek have the following and detail-obsessed fanbase of the Carrera, and getting it wrong (as TAG has so often done) is easy to do.
The Glassbox gets it right. So very right. It may have taken over two decades, but TAG Heuer has finally built the Carrera for the 21st century, and I want one. You probably should too.
GMTs Everywhere You Look
When you sit down with a blank sheet of digital paper in front of you, it can be remarkably easy to fall back on trite clichés to help bolster a word count or break the proverbial seal and get the words flowing. I cannot deny that it is a tempting shortcut, and it is one that, in general, I do my best to avoid.
That said, in thinking about what trends from this year stood out to me, one particular trite cliché does spring to mind and, since there is quite literally a countdown clock between me and the new year, I’m going to allow myself this one indulgence.
When it rains it pours. And when it comes to affordable GMT watches, it has certainly poured.
I am on the record over and over again as having said that the GMT is my favorite complication. I’ve said it before and I will say it again (and again and again…), GMTs are the most romantic, and the most optimistic, complication on the market. They imply a desire to explore and connect with the broader world and serve as a reminder to get our asses out into the world and explore.
We don’t buy GMT watches with the intention of sitting at home and babying them. We buy them to conquer mountains (whether above or below ground is up to you), fly across the world, and explore the new and different. Ask many GMT-Master II owners what their favorite thing about their watch is and most won’t list any technical detail, they’ll tell you that it was the watch they were wearing when they lived some memorable moment.
The only issue with all this is that, until very recently, mechanical GMT watches weren’t hugely affordable, especially if one wanted a “flyer” style GMT. For much of the last five years, your best bet was probably the Tudor Black Bay GMT, which sold for around $3400 at launch. While that is attainable, it’s not exactly affordable — at least not for most people.
All that has begun to change. Over the last 18 months or so, we have finally seen an explosion of downright affordable flyer GMT watches, some even coming in at under $500. So many GMT watches have been released in recent memory that it has actually been somewhat overwhelming. I would be hard-pressed to think of another time a single complication has been so utterly democratized so quickly.
As someone who is equally as enthusiastic (if not more enthusiastic) about affordable watches as he is about luxury options this does raise several questions. First: Why? Why did this all happen so quickly? I have to imagine it is because as much as we all like to moan about watch companies seemingly ignoring all of us enthusiasts to go off and do whatever they want, that is all changing.
That enthusiasts, collectors, and members of the watch media have been clamoring for this for years has clearly had an impact. If you need more proof of this, just look at the direction of watch case sizes. In a world where the typical consumer is still more than happy to pull the trigger on a 43 or 45mm monster, that bigger brands are making smaller watches should tell us that our voices matter.
With that vaguely addressed (sort of) we ask the second question: If you love GMTs so much, why don’t you own one? It’s a fair question and one for which I don’t have a good answer. In a practical sense, it is because I forgot to set a reminder the morning the Lorier Hydra Zulu was released and missed the drop.
But in a broader sense, it is all to do with the sheer number of options that are available to us all now. Do I go for the excellent Mido Ocean Star GMT LE that HODINKEE put out earlier this year, or the Lorca Model No.1 GMT (admittedly a caller) that looks so good every time Gary Shtyengart posts it on Instagram next to a martini and some amazing meal. Do I pre-order a Hydra SIII from Lorier, or wait to see if they re-release the Zulu or for someone to offer one up for sale in some group chat?
So the simple answer is simply that I’m overwhelmed by options. I would be surprised if I get through 2024 without the addition of a GMT or two to my collection, but we will just have to wait and see. Also, there is still a big part of me that has my eye on a Polar dial Rolex Explorer II 16570 (I’d like one with drilled lugs, solid end-links, and Super-Luminova if anyone is feeling generous).
Moving past my indecision, there is one big question left to ask: What’s Next? What is the next big complication to make the journey to the sub-$1000 category? If I could choose, I would love to see the world-time make the trip, or possibly the annual calendar. Some new chronograph movements to compete with the ubiquitous Seagull would be nice, but we’ll dive more into 2024 in the coming weeks. For now, let’s just enjoy our glut of chronographs, and try and see some of the world while we’re at it.
The Watch I Wore Most This Year — Vertex M60 Aqualion ND
To close out both 2023 and this article, I figured I should quickly share with you all the watch that I wore most this year. Any of you who have seen me in person during the latter half of the year must already know the answer to this, but for those who haven’t, the watch I wore most in 2023 is the Vertex M60 Aqualion ND.
I started this year off with the intention of not buying any watches. That… didn’t last. Like at all. But where the first half of the year was marked by a handful of new arrivals, my trajectory changed when I finally got my hands on the Vertex Aqualion.
Since the Vertex made its way into my life, it has firmly planted itself as my primary daily driver. It does absolutely everything I need it to do without any issue and, were you to remove any sentimentality from the equation, is probably my favorite watch out of my collection — at least at the moment.
I’ll have more to say about this down the line (it’s about due for a proper review), but for now, I’ll just say that the Vertex is undoubtedly the watch I wore most in 2023, and I can’t wait to see what beats it out in 2024.