Oracle Time

Tissot has partnered with the NBA for more than 10 years now, and their relationship with point guard Damian Lillard is growing ever stronger.

Breitling’s modern-retro run has produced some of the most convincing Navitimers in decades, with proportions and dials closer to the 1960s originals than anything the brand made in the 2000s, and then sold most of them in limited numbers.

It’s October and that means the world is getting ready for spooky season, but did you know that the watch industry has also embraced this frightening holiday?

Arsène Lippens Artigiano Sashiko Denim It’s impossible not to love Arsène Lippens.

Independent watchmaking, and the ever-rising attention it commands, owes more to the Antiqua than to almost any other single watch, and one example has now sold for close to a million Swiss francs.

There’s a well-worn path in watchmaking: spend years building someone else’s brand, then go off and build your own.

I’ve been harping on about E.C.

De Rijke & Co. started with a problem every classic-car driver knows: checking the time without taking your hands off the wheel.

Over their six years of existence, Studio Underd0g have gone from colourful British upstart to an ambassador for what our specific breed of home-grown horology does best: tongue-in-cheek eccentricity as a design language.

It took me two meetings and one oversized demonstration model to fully understand the energy recovery mechanism at the heart of Renaud Tixier’s Monday.

It’s the golden age of high-end independent watchmaking, with more exceptional makers and mad horologists than ever before.

The term “fashion watch” is used to describe watches created by fashion labels rather than watchmaking maisons where the purpose of the timepiece is to spread the brand’s logo rather than make a meaningful contribution to horology.

Wraven Labs Laptop Pad, $32 early-bird (approx. £24) Watches take more of a beating from a laptop’s corner than most owners realise, catching the top edge and the side alike.

No brand combines sports performance and metiers d’art quite like Gerald Charles.

Ressence is a Belgian watch brand that uses rotating, orbital displays and oil-filled dials to create watches look like extraordinary futuristic devices.

Between Sebastian’s recent article on Sidereal Time, the launch of the Diatom Inner Worlds and now the latest release from Formex, it is a great time to be a watch collector obsessed with space and the stars.

Typically, it’s easy to spot the popular colour trend that is sweeping through the watch industry such as emerald, sage, mocha, or Tiffany blue.

Military tool watches are very difficult to produce because they need the perfect balance of utility, durability, practicality, and precision.

When you’re an incredibly high end watch brand, like Biver whose watches don’t dip below £60,000, it behoves you to listen to what your collectors want.

When you look at Fears’ recent slate of watch releases across 2026 it tells a story in two parts.

Christopher Ward has been laying a detective trail across the internet in the lead up to their newest watch release, the C1 Loco Classic.

The first Hublot was created in 1980, though at the time Hublot was the name of the watch itself and not the brand.

Arnold & Son’s DSTB was built to show the exact second.

In August 2026, Chinese military researchers announced an ancient fix for a modern problem.

Secret and mystery watches are one of my favourite niche concepts in the already very niche industry of watch design.

Moriarty dials are different.

In the microbrand space it’s very common for brands to buy, build and combine existing wristwatch hardware from various suppliers to create their watches.

Right at the start of the year, way back in January, Angelus teamed up with watch platform Monochrome to create the Monochrome Montre de Souscription 5 Angelus Chronographe Tachymètre.

There has never been such a plethora of brilliant watchmaking outside the big houses.

Nomos Glashütte is a watch brand that has no questions about its own identity.

Tissot began its partnership with the NBA in 2015 as the official timekeeper and in the 11 years since they have become a constant feature of NBA games by developing custom shot clocks and custom NBA timing systems.

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Image credit: Adam Polidano One of more sporadic but exciting events on the wristwatch calendar is Patek Philippe’s Watch Art Grand Exhibition, where they display their Rare Handcrafts and showcase regionally inspired creations.

Image credit: Adam Polidano The world of the watch exhibition or watch show is a young and a dynamic one with more shows popping up all the time like Hands On Horology.

The Oracle Time community has spoken and after their nominations, the Oracle Time Watch Awards shortlist is here!

If you’re unfamiliar, Seiko’s Power Design Project is an annual event where Seiko invites their watch designers to let loose and create off-the-wall concept watches that are displayed in a global exhibition.

Omega has been the official partner watch of James Bond for over 30 years and in all that time, the titular action hero spy has been the main focus of their collaborative watches.

KronSegler Solaris Sun Phase Automatic, £499 A slow-turning 24-hour disc under the dial fades from day to night, part of KronSegler’s wider Project Sonnenphase on how cultures across history have tracked the sun.

Tedoro is a young independent brand founded in 2025 by Gilbert Maalouf with a range of sporty integrated bracelet timepieces.

Fellows – Watches, 28 October 2026 Fellows closes out the month with a watches-only online sale, run out of its Birmingham base rather than a physical saleroom event.

Omega recently invited us for a round of golf at Archerfield golf course outside Edinburgh to discover the brand’s connection to the sport.

Oracle Time’s OT Club Members were invited to an evening of discovery, drinks and fine company at Panerai’s New Bond Street Boutique on October 1st.

Right now, watchmaking is cleaner, faster, and more hyper-industrialised than ever before.

It was barely more than a month ago when we took a trip down memory lane to look at the history and impact of the Hanhart 417 ES and one of the topics that was discussed is the fact that the 417 ES was one of the favoured watches of Steve McQueen.

15 years ago, in 2011, Christopher Ward introduced their first in-house complication in the form of the JJ01 jump hour module.

Diatom is a relatively young British independent brand founded by Dr Alex Baker and Dr Chris Rose, who are both material science experts who worked in the aerospace industry.

It’s been a year of momentous anniversaries.

In 1963 Yiannis Carras bought a bay from a Mount Athos monastery and set about building a self-contained resort with its own marina, golf course and vineyard.

To my mind, the worlds of checkers and chess are adjacent to wristwatches.

Rolex has hosted a charity auction in partnership with Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo to raise money for the Federer Foundation and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Re:wild project.