Tudor-rific! Tudor 2011 Novelties Dinner with Sincere

My Heritage Chrono with my dinner companions' Tudor watches from 2009 and 2011 collections... the Fast Rider Chrono and the Hydronaut II

As you know, I love the Heritage Chrono Monte Carlo that my wife gave to me late last year for my birthday [for that post & review of the watch click here] so when the invite came in for dinner to check out the 2011 range, i wasn't gonna pass it up now was I :) before diving into the post then, my thanks to Tudor, who had their CEO Philippe Peverelli present and who was kind enough to let me play around with his working Tudor Advisor, & the wonderful hosts Sincere and Rolex & Tudor.

Mr Peverelli presenting the 2011 Novelties...

Food for the event was from Graze and i really liked the salmon appetizer and the main i selected, the wagyu beef... the baby wagyu burgers served before the dinner were nice too :) the ambience was managed well, with dim lights for the speech/presentation by the CEOs and the meals and with them coming on stronger when the watches were shown round... all in all, a fine dinner event.

Folks listening to the intro by Sincere CEO Stephan Ritzmann

most things were decked in black and red (the brand colors) that evening...

As a whole i find that Tudor comes out with reasonably priced affordable watches and as it has strong ties with Rolex being owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation there is some sense that it can maintain a certain strength and continuity in the market, and as it also shares the excellent Rolex Service Centre for servicing, you know that fixing/servicing for your Tudor will not be a problem for some time to come. [For those who do wish to pay increasing authorised service centre costs though, i would say nearly all watch servicers can oil/service the ETA movements commonly found in Tudors]

onto the 2011 lineup then... first up we have the new fast rider chrono in white dial and black sub-dials

it comes too on a leather strap and a fabric nato style strap pictured below...

shame that the sub-dials aren't in white and that the Tudor Geneve is on a light silver
plaque(?) and not just in white or silver print or embossed on the dial...

next up are the gran tours... the fly back with a seconds counter at 9 o'clock and a 'background motif reminscent of automobile transmission belts' as per the marketing materials :)

& the gran tour chrono... which i find i appreciated more after seeing the picture of it below for this dial version... pretty good for an affordable sporty steel watch

the one most was interested in for the night though was the advisor... taking its cues from the 1957 model, the advisor has an alarm & a power reserve for the alarm (seen at 3 o'clock) as an added complication. other brands with watches with alarms out there are the JLC (Memovoxes and others) and the Vulcain Crickets and others in their lineup...
this at below S$10k list is a worthwhile consideration if you have a hankering for an alarm watch and some folks i spoke to at the dinner event are keen on this feature and on acquiring this when its released in Q3...

a simple, smart looking watch for sure with touches of red as with the brand colors

the 1957 version which was quite slim as with most watches then

the surprise for me though was how much i liked the ladies range in the metal... i would recommend all the folks with female partners or are female reading this and considering a nice watch purchase to have a look at these watches. they come in a variety of metals and dial and strap combinations... the rose motif in the centre turns for the running seconds and it has other nice design touches like the transparent cabochon on the crown with a rose within...

the Clair de Rose is a winner in my books and priced at S$2.7k list for the all steel pieces... of course one has to consider other factors with ladies watches and i think one of them is if its desirable to the party you wish to buy it for as they may weigh different factors more highly... they may prefer something from a more known brand for a bit more for example but i say this is a good option to have in the mix before making a choice

i didn't get a good picture of it but i loved the grey, blue and white dials and the fabric strap with a nice design sewn into the fabric

and than it was an end to a good evening... heading back i did not forget the
goodies at the door and i must say the goodie bag did contain some real goodies :)

the coolest thing is a belt which is similar in design to my heritage chrono strap... i took out my heritage chrono strap considering to put it on the watch but its really quite a short strap and doesn't have enough length for me to go through the second keeper and do a loop back as how natos should be worn... they should look to sell longer versions of it...

another thing that impressed was their baselworld presentation kit which looked like a tiny booklet but you open up to see just whats below... a tiny screen playing all the ads done for the new collection... and its rechargeable via usb... cool stuff... i am thinking of taking it apart soon of course ;)

and that's that for now at least :) i hope you enjoyed the post. cheers, raph