“Shrink and pink” is a relatively recent term to describe how watch brands sometimes use a men’s watch as a base for making a timepiece more oriented toward the female consumer. Here Elizabeth Doerr shares five watches whose makers employed the “shrink and pink” tactic so successfully that she would wear them in a heartbeat. And spoiler: none of them are pink.
Every woman – nay, every person – is different. Which means their needs and wants will be different. All Elizabeth Doerr can do is tell you about her own experience with watches. But perhaps the most important thing of all to know is that any watch is a woman’s watch if a woman is wearing it.
Breguet’s Classique Dame Reference 9065 is always perfect for the season of love, but rest assured this watch is also the right choice any time. Martin Green thinks that’s largely due to the Tahitian mother-of-pearl dial, but there’s much more to this colorful delight as he explains here.
The new Breguet Reine de Naples Coeur Reference 9825 features a patented shape-shifting heart indication with a variable-length minute hand unlike any other minute hand that Elizabeth Doerr has ever seen. It’s a beguiling technical element as captivating as a beating heart.
With a still-ongoing pandemic, some might think it quite fitting that the Pantone Color Institute chose Ultimate Gray 17-5104 as one of its two Colors of the Year for 2021. Check out these five elegant timepieces with gray dials that are available now and decide for yourself if gray brightens your day as much as that of Sabine Zwettler.
Type 20 is a specification by the French Ministry of Defense for the standard-equipment pilot’s watch chronographs. Unlike German pilot’s watch specifications, those for the French Type 20 are not clearly documented but are rather based on common characteristics shared by various manufacturers. Bhanu Chopra explains what makes these watches so sought after and goes through the main models and characteristics.
Breguet writing instruments round out the Swiss brand’s elegant offerings with a style and grace similar to its timepieces, with many of the pens unabashedly borrowing stylistic attributes from the watch iconography. These writing instruments nestle into three collections: Tradition, Classique, and Reine de Naples, all in parallel with the watch collections of the same names. And they are a win in Nancy Olson’s book!
This Breguet souscription pocket watch number 1836 was created just after the French Revolution in 1796 and was sold in 1807 for £600. A testament to the quality of the movement’s design and the skill of its watchmaker, after more than 200 years it still runs perfectly today, which makes it the perfect role model for Breguet’s modern Tradition line. But what relationship does Ian have to it?
As read by you, here are the top ten most viewed articles on Quill & Pad in 2020. There are likely to be a few surprises. Drum roll, please: in no particular order, our top ten most viewed articles of 2020 were . . .
The Breguet Tradition collection, as exemplified here by the Tradition Automatique Seconde Rétrograde 7097, does just what it says on the label: provide tradition. And it does that very well as Ian Skellern illustrates in a comparison with an original 200-year-old Abraham-Louis Breguet Souscription pocket watch.