Oris Says Goodbye To The Divers Sixty-Five With The Best Retro Edition; Longines' Year Of The Snake Watch; New Le Locles From Tissot; Otsuka Lotec Stuns Once Again; And MB&Fs Celebrates 20 Years

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In this issue:

• The Oris Divers Sixty-Five 60th Anniversary Edition Is A Wonderfully Retro Recreation Of A Legendary Diver

• Longines Shows Their Year Of The Snake Watch, A 50’s Inspired Red Conquest Heritage

• Tissot Updates The Often Overlooked Le Locle Collection With Two New References

• Otsuka Lotec Releases Third Watch And It’s Just As Spectacular As You Would Want It To Be

• MB&F Is Celebrating 20th Anniversary With The Legacy Machine Perpetual And Sequential Flyback 'Longhorns'

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The Oris Divers Sixty-Five 60th Anniversary Edition Is A Wonderfully Retro Recreation Of A Legendary Diver

Goodbyes can be tough. But not for Oris. Because they’re saying goodbye to the Divers Sixty-Five with a lot of style. Sure, the newly introduced Divers Date that is replacing the Sixty-Five is basically the same watch, but we’ve grown to love the Sixty-Five. Now, celebrating 60 years of the model and paying homage to the 2015 50th Anniversary Divers Sixty-Five which became a runaway hit for the brand, Oris is introducing the Divers Sixty-Five 60th Anniversary Edition, a perfect rendition of a neo-vintage diver.

Housed in the classic stainless steel case of the Divers Sixty-Five, the watch measures 40mm wide, 12.8mm thick and with a 48mm lug-to-lug. On top is a delightfully retro double-domed sapphire crystal that protrudes significantly from the steel bi-directional rotating bezel with a throwback black aluminum insert that has a 60 minute dive scale. The insert doesn’t have the traditional inverted triangle, but rather a lumed dot. And just like previous models, it has the puzzling 100 meters of water resistance. It’s fine, but a bit low for a watch that has “diver” in the name.

The dial is a direct throwback to the 2015 special edition. The indices at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock feature beige lume boxes with the iconic oversized and quirky Arabic numerals in them. A lot of people don’t like them, but I think this is one of the best font uses in watches. More beige, or fauxtina, lume can be found on the rest of the markers, as well as on the hour, minute and lollipop seconds hands. All the text on the dial is also very retro, with “waterproof” replacing “automatic” under the Oris name at 12, and the words “anti-shock” and “26 jewels” at 6 o’clock, a nod to the 1965 model.

Inside, you won’t find Oris’ in-house movement. Instead, it’s the Oris 733, based on the Sellita SW200-1 automatic. It beats at 4Hz and has a 38 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a three-link rivet-style steel bracelet, and you get an additional black leather strap.

There are certainly many more capable dive watches than the Oris Divers Sixty-Five 60th Anniversary Edition out there. Cheaper, too. But I very much like the charm of this release. Price is set at CHF 2,250, which is, surprisingly, less than the new Divers Date. Sure, that has more features, but one wouldn’t expect the price to be lower. See more on the Oris website.

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Longines Shows Their Year Of The Snake Watch, A 50’s Inspired Red Conquest Heritage

As the Chinese Lunar New Year approaches, the watch releases paying homage to it increase in frequency. I liked quite a few of them last year, with the year of the dragon, but this year hasn’t seen as many bangers. Well, no more, because this very special red Conquest Heritage is a breathtaking watch.

Based on the regular Conquest Heritage, this wathc has strong vintage-dress-watch vibes in everything except for its size. It’s quite large at 40mm wide, but decently thin at 10.8mm with a lot of that thickness going towards the protruding glass-box sapphire crystal on top. It’s a simple case with a brushed finish and a couple of nice polished surfaces and a special 12-sided caseback that features an engraving of a snake holding a Lingzhi mushroom illustrated by Chinese artist Wu Jian’an.

More vintage influences can be found underneath the crystal, where the dial is heavily domed. It’s finished in a very dramatic shade of red which fades to a black on the edges, and all the hardware is gold color, a combination that carries significance in Chinese culture. The applied gold markers are wonderfully retro, while the dagger hands look razor sharp.

Inside is the calibre L888.5. Based on the ETA 2892, it features an antimagnetic silicon balance spring, beats at a curious 3.5Hz and has a really nice 72 our power reserve. The watch comes on a black alligator leather strap, closed with a pin buckle.

The new Longines Conquest Heritage Year of the Snake is limited to 2,025 pieces and priced at €3,350. See more on the Longines website.

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Tissot Updates The Often Overlooked Le Locle Collection With Two New References

Sure, Tissot is all about the PRX. It’s easy to see why they would put the majority of their efforts behind the watch that made Tissot a hip brand once again and sells in the millions. But Tissot has been making watches for far too long to be distracted, so we can expect the introduction of new watches or updates to existing lines on a regular basis. Now, we see an update to their more elegant and retro watch, the Le Locle with two very different reference and very different approaches.

Let’s start with the Le Locle Powermatic 80 Green, the more subdued of the new duo. It keeps the case of the original Le Locle watch, which means that it’s made out of stainless steel and measures 39.3mm wide and 9.75mm thick. On top is a sapphire crystal and out back is an exhibition caseback. Water resistance is 30 meters. Not great, but this watch should be more on the dressy side anyway.

The dial comes in a nice shade of green, with an embossed pattern on it that mimics the Clous de Paris hand-guilloché you would pay way more for. Surrounding the pattern is a sunray-brushed ring where the silver applied Roman numeral sit. The hour and minute hands are leaf-shaped, with the same silver finish. At 3, you’ll find the date aperture with a white date disc inside.

Inside, to no surprise, is the Powermatic 80 which beats at 21,600vph, has a Nivachron hairspring and that very cool 80 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a 7-link stainless steel bracelet or you can opt for a grey leather strap. The Le Locle Powermatic 80 Green is part of the regular collection and priced at €725. You can see more of it here.

On the other hand, there’s the Le Locle COSC 39mm 18K Gold Bezel, which is much more polarizing in its look. While the basics of the case remain the same, but on top you now get a solid 18K gold bezel. It’s surely loud, but then again, why not. The dial has a silver finish, with the same applied bezel, but the movement is ever so slightly changed. Sure, it’s still the sam Powermatic 80, only this one gets COSC certification for very much improved accuracy. And like the Green, this comes on the same 7 link stainless steel bracelet. Now, due to the amount of gold they used, the price has more than doubled over the green version — €1,845. See it on the Tissot website.

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Otsuka Lotec Releases Third Watch And It’s Just As Spectacular As You Would Want It To Be

Over the past several years, very few brands have gotten the wild amount of attention, praise and desire as the Japanese indie brand Otsuka Lotec, headed by watchmaker Jiro Katayama. Otsuka Lotec became instantly recognizable for their industrial and quirky style, unlike anything else in the industry, but also frustratingly unavailable outside of Japan, leading to huge markups on the secondary market. Now, following the No.6 and the No.7.5 models, Otsuka Lotec is introducing their third watch, the No.5 KAI. And it’s incredible.

OK, technically, this is an update to the original No.5 which was launched more than a decade ago, but it’s such a radical change that it can easily be considered a new watch. The overall look of the No.5 KAI remains heavily industrial in its appearance. It comes in a 40.5mm stainless steel case that measures 7.6mm thick. Sounds great, right? It is, but that’s because that’s a measurement without the crystal. It features a crazy tall box-style sapphire crystal that brings the thickness to 12.2mm. We’ve seen these tall box crystals over the past several years on a couple of watches and they look amazing every time. The rest of the case is roughly brushed, with the tiniest of lugs sticking out of the elongated case. Water resistance is 30 meters, but who cares about that when you have looks like these.

Then, there’s the dial. Or lack thereof. Otsuka Lotec loves to indicate time in unconvetional ways. The No.6 featured a jumping hour, while the No7.5 had a disc to show the time. Now it’s time for a wandering hours, a departure from the regulator setup of the original No.5. The dial is actually a series of roughly brushed plates and cogs, over which you’ll find the in-house satellite hour module. The module has three 3 rotating discs mounted on a central carrousel, with each disc displaying one of f our hours. Each hour satellite travels on a 120-degree arch for an hour, pointing to the minutes on the track on the right side of the dial. Otsuka Lotec points out that there is no snap that you often see on satellite hour complications. That’s because the hour disk is driven by a double reduction gear.

While the jumping-hour module is built in-house, much like a lot of this watch, Otsuka Lotec uses an affordable off-the shelf movement underneath to keep things at least somewhat manageable in price. Inside, you’ll find the Miyota 90S5 that beats at 4Hz and has a 40 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a double-padded black leather strap.

Like previous models, this one will also be limited exclusively to Japan and will be offered via a lottery that will take place in March. Price is set at 748,000 Yen or about €4,625. See more on the Otsuka Lotec website.

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MB&F Is Celebrating 20th Anniversary With The Legacy Machine Perpetual And Sequential Flyback 'Longhorns'

If you don’t consider the fact that Max Büsser is a very forward face of MB&F and it’s quite easy to see that he is not hundreds of years old, it would be easy to forget that MB&F is actually a pretty young brand. Started in 2005, it is now celebrating its 20th anniversary and to do so, they will be releasing a number of limited editions with the first two being the MB&F LM Perpetual Longhorn and LM Sequential Flyback Longhorn, special for their extended lugs that arc like horns.

This longhorn thing has been an obsession for MB&F for decades. They first envisioned the long, swooping horns back in 2009, but they ran into a problem — where to attach the spring bar. They could be either up close to the case or at the tip of the lugs, with each option looking fantastic on one wrist size and pretty horrible on the other. They abandoned the concept until 2021, when they solved the issue with a charity piece unique — why not do both? They gave those incredible lugs holes at both ends of the lug to attach the strap, giving the customer the choice of attachment point depending on their wrist size. This simple and elegant solution now makes its way to customers with the 20th anniversary Longhorns.

First up is the LM Perpetual Longhorn which comes in a 44mm wide and 17.5mm thick stainless steel case and the beautiful domed sapphire crystal we’ve seen in other LM Perpetuals. There’s no traditional dial here, as you would expect. At 12 o’clock on the dial display is a black lacquer time display, matched by black lacquer subdials that show the functions of the perpetual calendar. It has a flying balance wheel suspended over the dial, for an extremely dramatic look. This is as Iconic as MB&F gets, and the longhorns are just fantastic. The watch is powered by a manual winding fully integrated perpetual calendar movement developed for MB&F by Stephen McDonnell, beating at 18,000vph and with a 72 hour power reserve.

The other watch is the LM Sequential Flyback Longhorn, based on their relatively new flyback chronograph. It come s in the same 44mm wide steel case that’s even thicker on this one at 18.2mm. You get the same Longhorn lugs and the lack of traditional dial. You tell the time with the tiny, angled, dial at 6 o’clock which is done in black with blued hands. The movement, again designed by McDonnell, features a dual chronograph flyback system and innovative ‘Twinverter’ technology allows it to operate as a split-seconds chrono, independent timer, cumulative timer and lap-timer.

The new MB&F LM Perpetual Longhorn Case and LM Sequential Flyback Longhorn are both, of course, limited edition with 20 pieces of each ever being made. They also share a price tag of CHF 168,000, without tax. See more on the MB&F website.

⏲️Wait a minute

A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting

• In 2017, the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit committed to “reducing extreme risks from transformative technologies,” produced a seven-minute video titled “Slaughterbots.” In the video, an autonomous drone—loaded with three grams of explosive material and small enough to fit in the palm of your hand—takes flight. Using facial-recognition software, the drone targets a mannequin and then dives toward it, colliding with a sound like a gunshot and leaving a small hole in its forehead. Though the video itself is a work of fiction, the technology, Sarah Scoles writes, “was already in the works . . . and there was no international treaty to deal with it.” Scoles traces the evolution of autonomous weapons and details the concerns—commercial, ethical, existential—already shaping a thriving industry.

• Granted, Netflix has given us some pretty great television shows (even if you’re not counting I Think You Should Leave). But something is seriously up with the movies coming from the streaming platform (even if you’re not counting Hot Frosty). For n+1, Will Tavlin peels way the disruptor mythology to lay bare what’s really going on. Read it now, so when “Netflix and chill” means “try unsuccessfully to find something decent to watch from among the AI slop masquerading as cinema” you’ll be able to say you saw it coming.

• Great news: Restrictive beauty standards that take inordinate amounts of time and effort to achieve via questionably safe means are no longer just for women. Young men are also joining the club. If you’re wondering whether these trends were birthed by the incel community before being spread on TikTok, 10 points for you. And if you’re Gen X or older, get ready to learn a slew of new slang in Mickey Rapkin’s dive into the new attractiveness standards for young men.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

Eight years ago, one of the best YouTube creators of wonderful video essays on movies just stopped making new videos. Which was a darn shame, because they were works of art. I didn’t notice that three months ago, he reactivated his account and he’s back, better than ever.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk