The case is white zirconium oxide ceramic with a Ceratanium bezel and back, rated to handle temperature swings from 100 to -100 degrees Celsius (212 to -238 Fahrenheit). Indeed, the whole piece has been shaken to 10 g’s at Vast’s Long Beach facility, exceeding forces astronauts experience during ascent, and came out the other side running just fine. Price is still up in the air.
TAG Heuer Monaco Evergraph (From $25,000)
Watch brands love finding ever more recherché areas to reinvent, and the precise “snick” of a chronograph’s stop/start/reset buttons is the latest micro-battlefield in which R&D teams are duking it out. Last year, Audemars Piguet took the feel of an iPhone button as the inspiration for its Royal Oak RD#5; now TAG Heuer has its own take on push-button ergonomics.
Normally, chronograph buttons involve a cluster of levers, springs, and cams that click into place with varying degrees of precision. TAG Heuer has thrown most of that out with the Calibre TH80-00, five years in development between its TAG Heuer LAB innovation department and movement maker Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier. It replaces the traditional architecture with two flexible bistable components—essentially shape-shifting parts that snap between positions—produced via high-precision LIGA fabrication, a micro-manufacturing technique that includes lithography, electroforming, and molding.
The result? Crisper actuation that, crucially, doesn’t degrade. According to TAG, the 10,000th press feels identical to the first. Paired with TAG’s incredibly high-tech TH-Carbonspring oscillator (magnetism-resistant, 5-Hz, 70-hour reserve, COSC-certified), it’s housed in a reworked 40-mm titanium Monaco with the crown back on the left where Steve McQueen’s 1969 original had it. You get two versions: brushed titanium with blue accents or black Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) with red. The dial is transparent acrylic, so you can watch the compliant mechanism do its thing.
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Vacheron Constantin Overseas Dual Time Cardinal Points (Price on Request)
Vacheron Constantin’s Overseas line, among the most celebrated examples of Switzerland’s dominant “sports-luxe” genre, leans heavily into the sports side with a full-titanium, GMT-treatment across four references. Each dial is color-mapped to a compass point: white for north, brown for south, green for west, blue for east, contrasting with a bright orange, Rolex-style GMT hand for the time zone at home.
The lineage traces to a 2019 prototype built for explorer Cory Richards to wear up Everest—probably the most luxurious timepiece that has been to such places. The 41-mm case, integrated bracelet, and folding clasp are all in titanium with a matte anthracite finish on the bezel and crown. Inside is the in-house Calibre 5110 DT/3, a self-winding GMT with home-time am/pm indicator, local-time date pusher, and 60-hour reserve. Classic sports watch attributes, but here certified with the Geneva Hallmark, the highest official benchmark of fine watchmaking and hand-finishing.
