Month: October 2019

The future of luxury imitation timepieces is either doomed or never to fail, thanks to a growing appreciation for the tradition of good watchmaking. But just in case, copies of Tag Heuer wear their new golf watches on both sides of the course, depending on whom you talk to.
However, TAG also unboxed a new Connected Modular 45 ‘Golf Edition’ watch. A sportier version of the Connected 45 collection that the fake TAG originally released with a cameo in the last Kingsman movie, it’s billed as a combination of advanced watchmaking with golf-friendly technology, for those looking to improve their performance on the links.
That’s the new TAG Heuer Golf app which features 3D renderings of more than 39,000 courses, designed to be the best tool for enthusiasts of the sport. The replica TAG Heuer Connected Modular 45 ‘Golf Edition’ combines a golf-inspired design and shock-resistant materials, featuring a black ceramic bezel that is engraved with a scale of 1 to 18 indicating the number of holes in a round of golf.
The watch’s touchscreen is covered with a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal and it’s decorated with several sensors including GPS, NFC, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a microphone. Moreover, it has the function of sending messages, receives notifications, plays music, and download other apps. The luxury smartwatch movement is still in its infancy and the Tag Heuer replica is actually aiming to carve out a fair-sized market share.
One could even state that the Connected Modular 45 ‘Golf Edition’ is “the 21st century equivalent of the original vintage sports fake watches from the 1950s and 1960s that are now so respected by collectors,” notes one industry observer. And while this watch will never be a collector’s piece, it may yet mark a historical milestone in hybrid watchmaking and marketing.
Therefore, no matter if you’re into TAG’s re-issued and re-created heritage designs, which are actually mid-century sports replica watches, or their advanced sport-specific smartwatches just like this one, which is more next-century, there’s no denying the brand is embracing both the future and the past and hoping that both can flourish and coexist.

I have two questions “Did they do it? Did they do the Worldtimer in steel?” It was only the second day at Baselworld 2019, and already the replica Omega was showing its newest novelties in secret, but to retailers only —no media was present and no photos were taken. For the past two exhibition cycles, I’ve been anxiously waiting for the 2015 platinum halo edition to make its way into the regular collection — and this must be the year.
“It’s amazing. It’s seriously gorgeous,” he added breathlessly, as though adjectives failed him in that particular moment. What I didn’t know is that fake Omega had not just shown him the blue-dialed Worldtimer in steel, but also an equally gorgeous Sedna gold variant with a stark white dial that complements the laser-ablated map relief in the center perfectly. Wait, laser-what?
It is just the laser-ablated. It is how Omega replica has rendered the gnomonic projection of the earth at the center of the dial in such staggering detail. Actually, the dial center’s grade 5 titanium surface is zapped with a laser at varying levels of intensity, creating chemical reactions that yield an equal variety of intense textures and colors, meant to evoke the planet’s seas and landmasses, encircled by a glass 24-hour ring. But what really surprised me about seeing this dial in the flesh is just how much depth and dimensionality it hides — not the same with the textured rotating globe that you might remember from geography class. The visually striking end result uses super-modern manufacturing methods to achieve the time-honored tradition of putting a map in the center of a world timers dial.
The rest of the eggshell-white dial is rendered in a somewhat traditional world timer manner: You have the beveled applied hour markers, a deep, tonneau-shaped date aperture at 6 o’clock, and subtle longitudinal striping, which seems a bit like the vertical “teak-deck” style dials from the 8500-series generation of Aqua Terra watches.
Functionality-wise, fake Omega’s new Worldtimer runs similar to a traditional GMT watch, albeit one whose information is simply presented in a different way. Rather than a 24-hour hand running around the center of the dial, as Omega did with its Calibre 8605-powered Aqua Terra GMT of year’s past, we now have a rotating 24-hour disc, which simply reads the local time in each of the world’s primary time zones.
Speaking of which, I had a love or dislike relationship with the Aqua Terra GMT of year’s past. On one hand, it was amazing, super legible, strongly water-resistant, and was full of a globetrotting movement that dunked on any of its contemporaries, making it a serious contender for true GMT supremacy.
At 43mm by 15.5mm, the new Worldtimer is hardly a small watch, but the fake Omega’s edits to this larger case included shortening and sharpening its twisted lugs, which now taper in a steeper downward angle, cutting the overall lug-to-lug measurement to 50mm and enabling the Rolex replica watches to sit closer to the wrist. Even in solid gold, and weighing just over 150 grams, it still wears comfortably, owing to the highly supportive leather strap which pushes directly downward from the lugs, rather than out and down, as stated in the previous generation. Everything about the redesign reinforces the fact that the original case size, and even weight, of the watch, is secondary to the design of the earpiece — Omega nailed it here.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it, that the world time traveler’s good watch is conspicuously lacking. When I say “yes,” I mean those that can easily adjust the hour hand while observing “family” or “global time,” and that is waterproof enough that the wearer doesn’t stop when looking at a hotel pool or seaside vacation halfway around the world.

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