The best black watches
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
When it comes to the colour of your watch, nothing says discretion and understated confidence quite like black. Think Karl Lagerfeld in the ’70s with his customised black-painted Audemars Piguet Royal Oak or the late Virgil Abloh with his all-black Patek Philippe Nautilus. It says practicality, recalling the dials of watches worn by the armed forces during the second world war; but it also says glamour – the perfect accessory to a black-tie suit or little black dress.
The latest crop sees Victoire de Castellane dressing up the classic Dior La D de Dior in matte black for the first time, with a diamond-set bezel. Tom Ford gives a nod to military styling with the outsize luminous Arabic numerals of its latest release, while Hublot and Richard Mille make bold artistic statements – the former in its latest joint project with Takashi Murakami, encasing in black ceramic a dial that glitters with the artist’s trademark happy-flower emblem in a rainbow of jewels; the latter with a Carbon TPT heavy-metal inspired piece, complete with a skeletal gold hand making the devil’s horns gesture at the heart of a see-through dial. It’s time to bet on black.
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa, £24,700
TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x Porsche Orange Racing, £5,850
Omega Speedmaster Super Racing, £10,700
Hublot Takashi Murakami Classic Fusion Rainbow with unique NFT, £45,000
Dior La D de Dior Black Ultramatte with black diamonds, £4,100
Hermès H08, £14,000
Patek Philippe Alarm Travel Time Ref 5520P-001, £226,600
Chopard Alpine Eagle Cadence 8HF, £18,500
Richard Mille RM66 Flying Tourbillon, SFr985,000 (about £874,739)
Tom Ford N002 Ocean Plastic Sport Camo, £1,020 (available from 17 April)
A Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk, $101,000
Breitling Premier B01 Chronograph, £7,200
Panerai Luminor Razer Edition, £7,300
Longines Pilot Majetek, £3,500
Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 Ultra-Complication Universelle RD#4, SFr1,45mn (about £1.29mn)
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